Punditry StaffFor those who keep track of the Supreme Court rulings, a pattern is rising from the ashes of the Trump presidency, which signals that the United States Supreme Court is utterly broken. Their latest ruling covered police qualified immunity. In this instance, the court refused to abolish the controversial practice, which led to immense abuses at the hands of brutal police officers serving to break the law, and not to uphold it. The court, in effect, sent the signal that police officers killing innocent black Americans are not subject to the same accountability we hold any other civil servant. Their crimes are immune from civil action by bereaved family members.
Just another white arrow in the quiver of our inequitable legal system.
The unjust Supreme Court rulings are commensurate with the systematic racism we see everyday in every courtroom of justice. Through the Supreme Court, America is perpetuating police brutality and racism instead of building a fair and equitable society for all to respect and enjoy.
Take, for example, the 1986 Supreme Court ruling that insured white jurors to dictate the outcomes of racist killings in America. Ari Melber of MSNBC explains it succinctly in this video segment with regard to the Ahmaud Arbery murder trial.
Or CNN’s Brianna Keilar exposing racism in the very structures of our legal system, which the judge presiding over the Arbery case agrees with. How is it possible for a legal case to proceed when the judge declares discriminatory practices when it comes to jury selection? Only in America, folks.
Watch the video below:
America has politicized the Supreme Court nominating process. Instead of jurists selecting from among their peers, we have Senators, with a clear political agenda, adjudicate the nominations.
THE HARVARD LAW TODAY
In March of 2021, the Harvard Law Today asked the very same question about the viability of our Supreme Court.
The HLS staff writes the opinion of Linda Greenhouse, a senior research scholar in law at Yale Law School, who the panelists asked a forthright question: Do we have a problem with the nation’s highest court?
Her answer is clear.
America has politicized the Supreme Court nominating process. Instead of jurists selecting from among their peers, we have Senators, with a clear political agenda, adjudicate the nominations. Their decisions, therefore, serve 50% of Americans, and not what is the best for the nation looking down the road of progress.
Our Supreme Court needs much needed reforms to reverse rulings perpetuating discrimination, bias, and racism.
RACISM PERSISTS
But when it comes to racism, you will find racist judges in both parties, thus tilting the outcome in favor of a racist white America. The jury selection in Ahmaud Arbery case demonstrates just how embedded racism is in our culture.
Eleven white jury and one black will determine the outcome of Arbery’s killers. A more representative number would have been four black and eight white juries. However, because of the Supreme Court’s 1986 ruling in Batson vs. Kentucky, peremptory strikes have become the norm, which tend to inject racism blatantly.
Our Supreme Court needs much needed reforms to reverse rulings perpetuating discrimination, bias, and racism.
The United States Supreme Court is Utterly Broken
Punditry Staff
