Race and Racial Bias in Poughkeepsie City Court
“What’s their race?” That’s a frequent question I raise to my court watching partner Julia. She can always quickly answer the question. We write down the race of the defendants because explicit or implicit racial bias may play an unacknowledged role in the plea bargain and sentencing process. In noting down the race of the defendants, it doesn’t matter how they identify themselves, but rather the racial identity that the judge, the prosecutors, and the jury perceive them to have. I grew up in a racially monolithic city, Shanghai. Since almost everyone is Chinese there, I am not familiar with the racial stereotypes in America (there are stereotypes about people in Shanghai too but just not ones around race). Judging another’s race based on appearance and external characteristics is, of course, largely dependent on racial stereotypes: the color of their skin, their facial features, their clothings, and their accents. Would that be a really tanned white person or a pale black person? Furthermore, multiracial people make this racial categorization even more ambiguous. Stereotypes become powerful and hegemonic when cultural and social meanings are attached to these traits, thereby engendering discrimination.
These issues hit home during my time spent court watching in Poughkeepsie City Court. Over the weeks and months I attended court, many African Americans pleaded guilty and were sentenced for criminal possession of illegal substances. Yet there was also one white woman who had her crime reduced to a violation; she was then released on a condition discharge.
The white woman, who had a private lawyer, was neatly dressed as she stood in front of the judge. She was charged with violating Penal Code 220.0605 (criminal possession of illegal substances), and one of the prosecutors, a bulky middle-aged white man, claimed that her charge should be reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor and then to a mere violation. As Judge Volkman questioned the reasons for this magnanimous plea bargain, the two assistant district attorneys awkwardly checked their documents. Unsurprisingly, the prosecutors stuttered and could not come up with a valid answer. What they said was their record indicated that the defendant should have this reduction. Though looking confused, Volkman agreed to the reduced charge. Therefore, the defendant was released with an acquittal in contemplation of dismissal (ACD): as long as she does not get arrested for one year, her charge will be cleared.
The experience of this white woman was drastically different from the experience of most people of color who are charged with criminal possession of illegal substances in Poughkeepsie City Court. During my court watching appearances, none of the defendants of color received any reduced charges. The prosecutors’ decision thus seems arbitrary and unreasonable, a kind of racial or gendered favoritism. And despite initially questioning the reduction, the judge became complicit with them when he approved the plea deal.
This racial disparity is explained in Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleves’s book, Crook County : Racism and Injustice in America’s Largest Criminal Court. She depicts that while black defendants were viewed as “degenerate, lazy, and undeserving” and called “mopes” (a derogatory word to humiliate the defendants behind their backs), white defendants were often seen “as ‘ill’ rather than criminal” (p. 65, 66). Their white privilege allowed them to frame their crimes as “the seminal turning point in their recovery” instead of “a pattern of criminality” (p. 66).
I am not arguing that many white defendants facing drug charges are not also experiencing mental health and addiction problems. Rather I am simply stressing that there is a problem when only white defendants enjoy this privilege and leniency in court. This kind of racial discrimination is perhaps the most significant problem of the American judicial system. In her book The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexande indicates that African Americans are specifically targeted for drug possession. Police use racial profiling to disproportionately arrest African Americans for drug offenses, but this racialization of drug offenses does not stop with law enforcement. The court system also shows racial biases in terms of sentencing and reduction, as this case demonstrates. The composition of the court itself is also racialized. The judge, the stenographer, the law clerk, the ADAs, the probation officer, and most public defenders are white, while only the court officers are predominantly black. The racial differences in those job positions underscore that we still live in a racialized society where black people have less resources and opportunities to become lawyers or judges. While African Americans fill jails and prisons, this white defendant received a reduction with no justified reason. And that, my friends, is the New Jim Crow.