uh...I'm 100% positive there's more violent crime in South Central than there is in Santa Monica.
Enforcement has nothing to do with that.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

Look at the police records of traffic stops in any major city. The statistical probability of being stopped if you're a minority citizen is way higher than the probability if you're white. This is far from contested territory.

Traffic stops are where many criminals who commit other crimes are caught. But more than that I think it just goes to show that police are more likely to patrol those minority areas, and that there's no reason to expect that there wouldn't be that same selective enforcement (if not downright bigotry) in prosecution. As far as your South Central/Santa Monica example, there's obviously a huge class element working there that's a major factor in addition to race.

I live in one of the sections of Portland that has the highest percentage of minorities. I can tell you quite confidently that if I drive by a cop going 10 over the speed limit, or with a tail light out, then a Mexican drives by the same cop in the same situation, if someone gets pulled over, it ain't gonna be me. We'd be lying to say we both don't know that's true. You can't tell me that mentality doesn't filter down to other parts of law enforcement.

I think you're being dramatic, because I've broken down other people's opinions like that before and found them to be biased or dramatic. Regardless, does going 10 mph over the limit land you in prison? No. Robbery/rape/murder/multiple B&Es land you in prison, and selective enforcement or prosecution has nothing to do with that. Police and detectives don't investigate serious crimes, develop a white suspect, and say, "ah, let's forget about this one". Suspects are developed with eye witness statements and video and latent prints that simply aren't mistaken very often.

You can go on forever about traffic stop stats, but that won't change the demographics in prison. Maybe jail by a minute amount, but not prison.

Stuuuuu's', no one is arguing against any of the things you just laid out.
But your initial argument was the death penalty is bad because innocent people are on death row and death row is disproportionally made of poor minorities.

I'm arguing poor minorities live disproportionally in high crime areas and exasperated by poverty or whatever are more likely to be involved.

If you think the representation of minorities in the death row population is predominately due to selective enforcement and stereotyping, I think you're doing a disservice to our justice system, which to be sure has its flaws, but is more good than bad.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

Stuuuuu - if you think that there are more people driving without licenses, insurance, or warrants for their arrests in suburbia, I think you're off your rocker.

Also - I'm a huge proponent of profiling, because, as El Al has proven, IT WORKS.

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Actually, I've read about some jurisdictions, and heard the clamoring in my own, where the black community has complained about NOT ENOUGH police patrol and presence in their neighborhoods. GHA housing already has certain squads dedicated to them, but that's not enough sometimes. Get tough and flood a problem area for a while - get called a racist the first time someone has to get slammed. Lay off and patrol all areas equally - crime goes up in the problem areas and the "community activists" say the police don't care. It's lose-lose. That's what police work is...30 years of lose-lose no matter how many serious felons you put in prison. The pebble throwers on the outside won't ever truly know about what they complain of.

I'm on your side, 100%. Flood the areas and stop caring what they say, because, well, the areas you flood are the ones crawling with criminals.

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Seems pretty clear to me the three of you at least EXPECT for minorities to be criminals at a higher rate than whites. Yet you want to argue they don't get unequal treatment once in the system. Seems to me there are probably plenty of others along the way that expect minorities to be criminal more often. Hence you have the situation where they are disproportionately represented in the penal system. Pretty straightforward.

No, you're just believing what you want to. You're taking the stance that police are the ones going out and finding crime all on their own. That's only maybe 5% of how crimes are investigated/solved. The vast majority of crime, especially serious crime, is reported to police via 911. It's the minority community calling 911 as victims to report the crime in their neighborhood. Then due to victim/witness statements, video, or prints, suspects are developed that end up being disproportionately minority. That's not the fault of police, unless you expect them to stop doing their job.

Police aren't going out to drum up crime stats and arrests in minority areas unless there has been a significant crime problem that has come to attention via multiple incidents or community outcry. Some other times there have been strings of burglaries in affluent areas. Do you think those crimes are investigated differently depending on whether the suspects are white or minority? Let's assume there are PDs with the most racist detectives around. How can they take statements and/or video about white suspects and turn around and force a minority suspect into a defendant in court?

All this talk about selective enforcement or racial profiling can only take place in the form of traffic stops or investigative detentions. These are the scenarios that lead to crime based on possession of drugs or weapons. One-time charges and convictions for mj/cocaine/heroin don't lead to prison time unless it's for trafficking (which would stem from a traffic stop). These officers that work the highways go to multiple classes on profiling (not RACIAL profiling) that teach them how to spot a likely drug transport. It's based on many factors, none of which have to due with race. But even without displaying these factors, you provide an open invitation for a traffic stop when you drive without proper registration, insurance, valid DL, or seatbelt. Sorry, but the same economic factors that lead a higher rate of minorities into crime also affect how much in order they keep their car and license. Then people cry "racism" without understanding all the factors. "Pretty straighforward".

It would be ridiculous of me to suggest that racism is the major reason that convinction rates have the racial bent that they do. The economic factors that minorities tend to live with you refer to do in fact play a role in many crimes, and are far more important in the explanation than racism in enforcement.

However I think it's also ridiculous not to acknowledge that attitudes like the ones NY INtensity expresses above are bound to have an effect too. Once in the system, if juries, judges, and lawyers hold that kind of expectation, even to a minor and sub-conscious degree, it will affect the outcomes and eventually the demographics of convinctions.

And I'm not trying to say that subtle biogtry makes our entire justice system a big fraud. What I'm saying is it's one of the many factors that makes me extremely uncomfortable with the death penalty. I think everyone could agree that certain people, say a Hitler or someone like that, deserves to die. But when we get down to some guy who shot his wife's lover or something, then I get less and less comfortable with the idea of judging who deserves to die. Then smaller factors like race and quality of representation could be the deciding factor on a death sentence, and I'm not sure we as a society should be putting people to death if anything like that even could be a factor. It's too important to me. A life sentence provides the opportunity that new evidence could be found. Then there are the practical considerations like cost, which is much lower on a life sentence. And really, what's more of a punishment, dying and having your suffering end, or living the rest of your life in jail?

Stuuuuuu - do you believe that trials that go to jury should also undergo jury sentencing?

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Damnit, cant we just go back to hanging people.

It cant cost too too much to hang someone

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PSA: I am an overly sarcastic person. If you take me at my word, then i will most likely anger and offend you.

I don't know that I have a very well-formed opinion on that one. Part of me thinks yes, but part also likes the idea of a highly-informed expert having some disgression.

It's actually the legal costs of all the appeals that makes a death sentence so expensive. The average cost per prisoner in capital cases in just massive. I heard the numbers a couple months ago but forgot them. Oregon's governor recently suspended all executions to call for a publc debate on capital punishment, so those type of statistics have been in the news.