I mean no disrespect to the NAACP. I just don't understand what makes organization like them choose when to speak out and when not to. There was a rally on the steps of the Louisiana Supreme Court building on behalf of C. Murder and his conviction of killing a teenager in a Jefferson Parish nightclub. Apparently there were a few jurors who were pressured to vote guilty even though they didn't think the prosecution proved their case. If that happened then the case needs to be looked into but why did the NAACP choose this point to get involved. The letters of the organization stand for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. We don't use the term 'colored' anymore but if we did Cory Miller would apply. So would the teenager that was murdered that night in the nightclub. His family would also be included. Then there are the other hundreds of young black men and women that have been victims of violence in the metro area and all of their families. They need some justice too. Then there are the people in the neighborhoods where all this madness takes place. I think we all qualify too. If the NAACP's goal is to fight for justice for C. Murder because he's black they better add more staff because if they did this for everyone they would be very busy.
I'm just thinking that an organization like that could probably better the lives of a few hundred colored people if they could work with law enforcement to keep someone like Telly Hankton off the streets. If the reply to that is stopping crime isn't their focus then they shouldn't be standing out there helping C. Murder either. Maybe I missed the dozens of press conferences when they stood up and demanded justice for all the poor mothers out there who can't get any justice for their children's murder. If they did then I am sorry of accusing them of trying to get media attention. I just don't know how the NAACP gets involved in a case like this without promising to help the victim’s family find the real killer if they think it’s someone else. That would be the right thing to do since they are colored too.
3 comments:
i agree with u...i know a couple myself...
Well the Miller case actually is interesting because it was decided by a 10-2 jury. Louisiana and Oregon are the only states remaining which do not require unanimous verdicts in criminal cases of this sort. James Gill has been writing about this lately in the T-P. Here's a bit of his latest column on the subject.
The Miller case does, however, demonstrate that a majority-verdict policy stacks the odds against black defendants. That, indeed, was why Louisiana abandoned unanimous verdicts in the first place.
Two of the three black jurors in the Miller case held out for acquittal. The Supreme Court has an opportunity to slay a last vestige of Jim Crow by ruling that their votes cannot simply be ignored.
Louisiana insisted on unanimous verdicts until a new constitution was adopted in 1898 with the express intent of establishing "the supremacy of the white race in this state."
Delegates did such a good job that Louisiana, which had 130,344 registered black voters in 1897, had only 5,320 three years later.
Under the 1898 constitution, non-capital cases could be decided 9-3. That remained in effect until the constitution of 1974 made it 10-2, which did not make all that much difference. As the Louisiana Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers argued in an amicus brief last year, when the U.S. Supreme Court refused writs in the murder case of Derrick Todd Lee, justice remained elusive for black people.
"When a group forming a majority in the community can elect both the District Attorney and the judge in a parish and then form an effective quorum on the jury, the jury no longer operates effectively as a check on oppression by the government, " the association wrote.
I think the case should be looked into if the verdict wasn't fair but that could be done quietly giving the circumstances of what happened. Having people including small children holding signs on the steps of the Supreme Court building is unnecessary.
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