Cuyahoga County Courts Show True Colors, False Justice
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Editorial
10/29/2008
Court systems need to act now on racial disparity.
So flagrant are the racial inequities in sentencing it seems as if our criminal judiciary slept through the civil rights movement.
White defendants were 35 percent more likely to receive treatment in lieu of conviction. Out-of-town and suburban whites were at least 77 percent more likely than black defendants to walk away with misdemeanor convictions.
[...]
The Ohio Supreme Court, meanwhile, must order judges to collect racial data pertaining to sentencing — a responsibility Ohio’s highest court has ducked since a 1995 state law directed it to do so.
Last year, Chief Justice Thomas Moyer agreed that the collection of race data was a worthy goal, “but I’m not sure how we achieve it.”
Start by demanding that judges in all 88 counties comply with state law.
That would be the first step to putting an end to this injustice.