Selective enforcement equals no justice

To the Editor:

Even if, because there was no witness to the actual altercation, we give the jurors in the George Zimmerman case the benefit of the doubt in rendering their verdict, you'd think our "justice" system could find a way to exact some retribution from Zimmerman.

After all, Zimmerman irresponsibly and against the advice of a dispatcher initiated an encounter with an unarmed kid that resulted in that kid's death. Unfortunately, retribution is not likely. In fact, Zimmerman will probably profit from his actions. And that is a real tragedy.

What's worse about this case though is that it makes vivid the "justice" double standard based on race that exists in this country. You can bet your bottom dollar that if Trayvon Martin had killed Zimmerman in the altercation, the system would have found a way to punish Martin without ado. The most likely scenario is Martin would have immediately been charged with murder (Zimmerman was initially let go and eventually charged only because of massive publicity about the incident), there would have been no publicity so Martin would not have been able to afford high-priced lawyers, his low-priced lawyer or public defender would have pressured him to accept a plea bargain, and he would be rotting in a jail at this very moment never having even had a trial.

Don't believe me? Ninety-five percent of all cases resulting in a felony conviction in this country are the result of plea bargains. Partly this is a class phenomenon, but it is also a racial phenomenon. So too, through programs like "stop and frisk" and racial profiling, police departments often target minorities.

For example, though the frequency of marijuana use by blacks and whites is about the same, blacks are arrested for marijuana possession at nearly four times the rate of whites, and thus, are far more likely to go to jail for marijuana possession. Now at this point I can hear some idiot chirping that since marijuana possession is a crime such blacks deserve to be in prison. But that misses the point. The point is that because they are targeted by the "justice system," minorities are disproportionately arrested, prosecuted, and incarcerated. The take-away line is this: When a nation selectively enforces the law to the detriment of a subset of its population then one lives in a nation without justice and all talk of "the rule of law" is farcical.

The "justice system" has all sorts of excuses for selective enforcement, but basically the excuses are driven by expedience or racism and they ignore the fact that tearing apart minority communities makes things worse not better. So let me repeat that take-away line for you. When a nation selectively enforces the law to the detriment of a subset of its population then one lives in a nation without justice and all talk of "the rule of law" is farcical.

Bruce Sanders

Greencastle