BLACK DEFENDANT VERSUS ALL WHITE JURY, PROSECUTOR AND JUDGES EQUAL MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE. PART 2

No shinning example of impartiality, when 'British justice' is dished out to black defendants.

Like the United Kingdom, where even the current Conservative Government has acknowledged that the country's black citizens are being discriminated against in all spheres of life, including how they are dealt with by the criminal justice system.  With racism being an acknowledged fact of British life, by what logic do the criminal justice system  'randomly' selected an all white jury and use them to deliberated on the guilt or innocence of a black defendant? 

Is it not fair to assume that, of the 12 white jurors, it is quite likely, if not certain, that some of them will have prejudicial and even racist beliefs against the ethnic and/or religious and gender background of the black defendant? If racism is a feature of the general population from which the jurors are selected, randomly or otherwise, how can all the jurors be magically free from that racism; especially when no additional procedures or processes are carried out to reduce the likely presence and impact of they a any such racism?

For black defendants, having a fair trial can still be like climbing a mountain, with the odds being so high at each stage of the process.

When a trial comprising a black defendant, being defended by a black advocate, on the one hand, and an all white jury, combined with a white judge - however judicious in his deliberations - and a white prosecutor, who seems to take pride in his stereotypical view of black people, can justice ever be seen to be done? Is such a scenario not one which can only, or is very likely to result in an injustice to the black defendant? Are the jurors not likely to see the black defendant and his/her black advocate through the dominant racist prism of a system which is known to institutionally racist towards black defendants?


If such a system cannot prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that it is not racist, and that the service it provides for black defendants is not more likely to be pernicious, then let it prove it to be otherwise. Just as how the black accused and/or defendant is likely to have to prove his/her innocence, instead of the state having to prove their guilt.

So, how can such a criminal justice system which is preset to deliver injustice to black defendants, be improved, short of being demolished and rebuilt?

It is not a matter of just the physical accoutrements of the criminal justice system which is problematic. The problem lies in the fact that, criminal justice systems are inherently there to safeguard the interests of ruling elites, and, where the country is predominantly or all white, will probably primarily prioritise that groups interests. And so we have, as I have already pointed out, all the key personnel and positions of power in the criminal justice system being from or allocated to members of the dominant ethnic group, in the case of Britain, white personnel.

Of course, it is not only the personnel which is of vital importance in ensuring that the criminal justice system delivers what it was originally intended to deliver, which is, outcomes which are deemed to be in the interests of the ruling classes or elites. Of probably even greater importance is the formulation of the laws which the criminal justice system is implementing, and the processes which it is using to do so. 

The laws are a reflection of the values, interests and worldview of the ruling classes. This ensures that, even when these laws are enforced by personnel or operatives originating from the ethnic and social groups against whom they discriminate, they are still likely to be interpreted and enforced in the discriminatory manner which is intended by their originators, and achieve their originally intended outcomes.