Read Unfair Online

Authors: Adam Benforado

Unfair (51 page)

Watching the tape, we sit where he sat:
YouTube, “Why I ran”; Kahan, Hoffman, and Braman, “Whose Eyes?,” 855.

Having adopted the officer's:
Benforado, “Frames of Injustice,” 1353.

What if the Supreme Court had:
Benforado, “Frames of Injustice,” 1353.

What if there had been:
Benforado, “Frames of Injustice,” 1353.

Each of these tapes would be:
Scott
, 550 U.S. at 372, 373; Benforado, “Frames of Injustice,” 1353–55.

Viewers might have considered:
Benforado, “Frames of Injustice,” 1354;
Scott
, 550 U.S. at 372, 384, 389, 396.

It might have triggered feelings:
Benforado, “Frames of Injustice,” 1354.

At the time of the accident:
YouTube, “Why I ran.”

He had left home:
YouTube, “Why I ran.”

By 11 p.m. he was completely:
YouTube, “Why I ran.”

When he suddenly saw:
YouTube, “Why I ran.”

His license had been suspended:
YouTube, “Why I ran.”

Running from the police:
For an interesting and revealing (if controversial) sociological perspective on the threat of capture and confinement that characterizes the lives of many young
urban black men, see Alice Goffman,
On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014).

There is no expectation:
Goffman,
On the Run
, 23–53, 195–201. Survey data shows that only 44.2 percent of black people between the ages of eighteen and twenty-nine trust the police, as compared to 71.5 percent of whites. “Young People of Color Mistrust Police, Legal System, Report Finds,”
ScienceDaily
, August 16, 2014,
www.sciencedaily.com​/releases/2014/08​/140816204417.htm
. And 54.5 percent of black youths have been harassed by the police—almost twice the rate of non-blacks. “Young People of Color Mistrust Police.”

For many black teens:
Goffman,
On the Run
, 23–53; Alex Kotlowitz, “Deep Cover: Alice Goffman's ‘On the Run,' ”
New York Times
, June 26, 2014,
http://www.nytimes.com/​2014/06/29/books​/review/alice-goffmans-on-the-run.html?_r=0
.

In a fateful instant:
YouTube, “Why I ran.”

As he explained later:
YouTube, “Why I ran.”

We see, in the words:
Matt. 7:3.

Every year, more squad cars:
“Should Police Wear Cameras?”
New York Times
, October 22, 2013,
http://www.nytimes.com/​roomfordebate/2013/​10/22/should-police-wear-cameras
.

In 2012, a program:
Ian Lovett, “In California, a Champion for Police Cameras,”
New York Times
, August 21, 2013,
http://www.nytimes.com/​2013/08​/22/us/in-california-a-champion-for-police-cameras.html?hp&_r=1&
.

Over the next year:
Lovett, “In California.”

Knowing that they were:
Lovett, “In California.” Subsequently, the police department expanded the program to cover every uniformed officer. Other jurisdictions, including New York
City, Albuquerque, Oakland, and Fort Worth, have introduced similar cameras into their forces. John F. Timoney, “The Real Costs of Policing the Police,”
New York Times
, August 19, 2013,
http://www.nytimes.com/​2013/08/20​/opinion/the-real-costs-of-policing-the-police.html?hp
; Lovett, “In California.”

The proliferation of video footage:
Benforado, “Frames of Injustice,” 1375–76; Paul Lewis, “Every Step You Take: UK Underground Centre That Is Spy Capital of the Word,”
Guardian
, March 2, 2009,
http://www.theguardian.com/​uk/2009/mar/02​/westminster-cctv-system-privacy
.

Since camera angles that offer:
Ratcliff et al., “Camera Perspective Bias,” 203.

Since it's often not possible:
Benforado, “Frames of Injustice,” 1359.

We should be particularly careful:
Benforado, “Frames of Injustice,” 1359. One danger is that police leadership may not be aware of the problem of perspective bias. The commissioner of the NYPD, Bill Bratton, for instance, has sung the praises of having cameras on his officers: “So much of what goes on in the field is ‘he-said-she-said,' and the camera offers an objective perspective.” Lovett, “In California.” If only that were true.

Alternatively, we might allow it:
Benforado, “Frames of Injustice,” 1359.

The Sixth Amendment provides:
Henry T. Greely, “Law and the Revolution in Neuroscience: An Early Look at the Field,”
Akron Law Review
42 (2009): 697.

It is not fair that:
Aneeta Rattan, Cynthia S. Levine, Carol S. Dweck, and Jennifer L. Eberhardt, “Race and the Fragility of the Legal Distinction between Juveniles and Adults,”
PLOS ONE
7, no. 5 (2012): 2, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0036680.

Recent research suggests that:
Natasha Schvey, Rebecca Puhl, Katherine Levandoski, and Kelly Brownell, “The Influence of a Defendant's Body Weight on Perceptions of Guilt,”
International Journal of Obesity
37, no. 9 (2013): 1279. doi: 10.1038/ijo.2012.211.

Female jurors, by contrast, do not:
Schvey et al., “Weight on Perceptions of Guilt,” 1279.

What's more, slim men appear:
Schvey et al., “Weight on Perceptions of Guilt,” 1279.

Implicit association tests are:
Sean M. Phelan et al., “Implicit and Explicit Weight Bias in a National Sample of 4,732 Medical Students: The Medical Student CHANGES Study,”
Obesity
22 (2014): 1201–08; “About the IAT,” Project Implicit, accessed May 13, 2014,
https://implicit.harvard​.edu/implicit/​iatdetails.html
.

The basic idea behind:
“About the IAT,” Project Implicit.

When an image or word appears:
“About the IAT,” Project Implicit.

Then the categories are changed:
“About the IAT,” Project Implicit.

Measuring the speed of responses:
Phelan et al., “Implicit and Explicit Weight Bias,” 1201.

In these cases, many people:
Phelan et al., “Implicit and Explicit Weight Bias,” 1201–08.

To date, the researchers who have developed:
“Ethical Considerations,” Project Implicit, accessed May 13, 2014,
https://implicit.harvard.edu​/implicit/ethics.html
.

The time may come when:
Greely, “Law and the Revolution in Neuroscience,” 698; Nadelhoffer and Sinnot-Armstrong, “Neurolaw and Neuroprediction,” 633.

And breakthroughs in neuroscience:
Greely, “Law and the Revolution in Neuroscience,” 698; Thomas Nadelhoffer and Walter Sinnot-Armstrong, “Neurolaw and Neuroprediction: Potential Promises and Perils,”
Philosophy Compass
7, no. 9 (2012): 633, doi: 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2012.00494.x.

In a recent fMRI study:
Harrison A. Korn, Micah A. Johnson, and Marvin M. Chun, “Neurolaw: Differential Brain Activity for Black and White Faces Predicts Damage Awards in Hypothetical Employment Discrimination Cases,”
Social Neuroscience
7 (2012): 398–409.

Rather than filling out a questionnaire:
Greely, “Law and the Revolution in Neuroscience,” 698.

 

6. The Corruption of Memory ~ The Eyewitness

“Do you see a person”:
Harvard University Press, “Understanding Eyewitness Misidentifications,” March 14, 2011,
http://harvardpress.typepad.com/​hup_publicity/2011/03/​understanding-eyewitness-misidentifications.html
; Brandon L. Garrett, “Introduction: New England Law Review Symposium on ‘Convicting the Innocent,' ”
New England Law Review
46 (2012): 671–74.

“Yes, sir”:
Harvard University Press, “Understanding Eyewitness Misidentifications.”

The Meriwether County prosecutor:
Maureen Downey, Georgia Innocence Project, “Sharper Eyewitnessing,” December 21, 2007,
http://www.​ga-innocenceproject.org/​Articles/Article_95.htm
.

This was a pivotal moment:
Garrett, “Introduction,” 672.

The woman on the stand:
Bill Rankin, Georgia Innocence Project, “Innocent Man's Conviction Show's Flaws in Line-Ups,” December 13, 2007,
http://www.ga-innocenceproject.org/​Articles/Article​_90.htm
; Innocence Project, “John Jerome White,” last accessed May 12, 2014,
http://​www.innocenceproject.org/​Content/John_Jerome_White.php
.

“If you would, please, ma'am”:
Harvard University Press, “Understanding Eyewitness Misidentifications.”

“That's him”:
Harvard University Press, “Understanding Eyewitness Misidentifications.”

John Jerome White was convicted:
Garrett, “Introduction,” 672.

At trial, White had been adamant:
Innocence Project, “John Jerome White.”

He was not the one:
Innocence Project, “John Jerome White.”

“I know I didn't”:
Garrett, “Introduction,” 672.

The prosecution didn't have much:
Transcript of Record at 102, 122, State v. White, No. 314 (Ga. Super. Ct. May 29, 1980).

But under cross-examination:
Transcript at 112.

The victim had identified White:
Innocence Project, “John Jerome White”; Garrett, “Introduction,” 672.

In the words of Supreme Court Justice:
Watkins v. Sowders, 449 U.S. 341, 352 (1981) (Brennen, J., dissenting).

But John Jerome White was not:
Innocence Project, “John Jerome White.”

DNA tests conducted in 2007:
Innocence Project, “John Jerome White.” The Georgia Innocence Project got involved in the case in 2004 after White sent them a letter while in prison. Rankin, “Innocent Man's Conviction.”

By the time White walked out:
Dorie Turner, “DNA Test Clears Man After 27 Years,”
Washington Post
, December 11, 2007,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/​wp-dyn/content​/article/2007/12/11​/AR2007121101207.html
.

Without her error, White wouldn't:
White initially served ten years in prison for the crime he did not commit. While on parole, he was convicted of drug and robbery charges and served an additional 12.5 years—a sentence enhanced by his previous (wrongful) conviction. Innocence Project, “John Jerome White.”

The authorities never looked:
Rankin, “Innocent Man's Conviction.”

It was then, just a few weeks:
Gary Wells, “The Mistaken Identification of John Jerome White,” last accessed May 18, 2015,
http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/​~glwells​/The_Misidentification_of_John_White.pdf
.

White appears in the middle:
Wells, “The Mistaken Identification.”

He is rail thin:
Wells, “The Mistaken Identification.”

He looks directly at:
Wells, “The Mistaken Identification.”

Lineup photograph:
I thank Brandon Garrett for providing this copy of the original lineup.

The victim had no trouble:
Brandon L. Garrett,
Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), 66.

As she explained, she was:
Garrett,
Convicting the Innocent
, 66.

Standing before her, just two spots:
Wells, “The Mistaken Identification”; Kaffie Sledge, Georgia Innocence Project, “Adjusting to Freedom,” April 21, 2008,
http://www​.ga-innocenceproject.org/​Articles​/Article_104.htm
.

At the police station, she had looked:
Garrett, “Introduction,” 672.

Parham's inclusion in the lineup:
Garrett, “Introduction,” 672–73.

Parham just happened to be:
Rankin, “Innocent Man's Conviction”; Garrett, “Introduction,” 673.

The police had no idea:
Wells, “The Mistaken Identification.”

And it would be almost thirty years:
The perpetrator's DNA was eventually matched to the pubic hair found at the original crime scene. Rankin, “Innocent Man's Conviction.”

Even among the limited number:
Garrett,
Convicting the Innocent
, 57–58, 67.

In one of those cases:
Jennifer Thompson, “I Was Certain, but I Was Wrong,”
New York Times
, June 18, 2000, 2014,
http://www.nytimes.com/​2000/06/18​/opinion/i-was-certain-but-i-was-wrong.html?src=pm
.

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