It's absolutely unbelievable that you have no regard for the First Amendment for anyone who disagrees with you, yet you take issue with a judge trying to make a difference with these kids.
seperate but equal?
why did his making a difference have to exclude anybody? he could have given the lecture just like many judges do everyday. did he honestly think that these criminals would only listen to a black man?
this kind of seperatist thinking has no place in our court systems.
just another advocate judge more interested in his own agenda than in the law. he is there to allow the wheels of justice to turn. to advise the jury and to pass sentence.
as an attorney i would worry about this jusge allowing for different sentencing based on race.
Not to be nitpicky here but according to the article non of the defendants were asked to leave the court room, just some of the lawyers (MOST but not ALL of whom were white). Granted I am relying on the quoted article for my facts but at this time that is all I am going after. Personally I would have an issue if the defedant pool were more racially diverse and the non blacks were excluded. One question I do have is why some and not all the laywers were asked to leave? Or were all asked to leave and all did not leave? Can the defendants whos lawyers left the courtroon claim negligence on part of their defense council if they get convicted? (I guess that was more than one question and perhaps I should take remedial math until I learn to count.)
I dont think the Judge excused the whites because of any perceived limitation on their part. I think he wanted to talk to the youths directly, to perhaps to appeal to them individually -- Maybe he wanted to show them -- Hey -- I am also a black man, but I am a judge and have been successful. Perhaps he wanted to appeal to them as a role model. ANd I applaud that.
I know at some level it was a bad move -- but it is nieve to say black americans, expecially the young -- dont have their own culture separate from what we may think of as mainstream; I think the Judge was trying to show them that they are part of a larger society, and he himself is an example of someone who retained his heritage and was also successful. That the two ideas are not necessarily exclusive.
Now, I dont have figures to back this up, but I am sure I can find them. The violent crimes in Atlanta are disproportionately committed by blacks, as Judge Arrington has alluded to by having 99% of persons brought to his courtroom for these crimes are black youths. I think he is trying to make a difference in some of these kids lives, and I have to applaud that.
He has done this despite the political in-correctness of it all, despite what anyone mught think, which I also applaud.
I admit, my knee jerk reaction was that he was a racist, because of how the headline read. They did the man a disservice there.
SO, is it worth it if Judge Arrington has made a difference to one of these kids ? -- perhaps he has saved a life, prevented a future crime. Became a positive figure in someones life. And I definately applaud that.
i doubt he changed one thing with those kids. but as a white defendant in his court i would be worried about his exclusionary tactics. i would be watching his sentencing very carefully.
sgt.null wrote:i doubt he changed one thing with those kids. but as a white defendant in his court i would be worried about his exclusionary tactics. i would be watching his sentencing very carefully.
Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. At any rate, I fear you are correct -- they will be watching his decisions, and those who want to see racial bias will see it.
A tough one. On the one hand, it's a good thing that he wanted to speak to the members of his own race about this, and understandable.
On the other, as Prebe points out, there would be an outcry if somebody had attempted the reverse, and asked the blacks to leave the room.
Colour is going to be an issue for as long as we make it an issue. This definitely implies a view that is stereotypical at best, however well meaning it was.
the judge should know better. he should be an educated man. he should have known that showing racial bias is not a good thing. this is the problem with having judges who don't have to answer to anyone.
if i were a lawyer i would be studying up on his sentencing to see if maybe i just had an appeal handed to me.
sgt.null wrote:i doubt he changed one thing with those kids. but as a white defendant in his court i would be worried about his exclusionary tactics. i would be watching his sentencing very carefully.
Again in the article it does not mention that he asked ANY of the defendants to leave, just the lawyers.
sgt.null wrote:i doubt he changed one thing with those kids. but as a white defendant in his court i would be worried about his exclusionary tactics. i would be watching his sentencing very carefully.
Again in the article it does not mention that he asked ANY of the defendants to leave, just the lawyers.
is he allowed to talk with the defendants without counsel? would you want that? julie is off today so i will have to wait on those questions.
sgt.null wrote:i doubt he changed one thing with those kids. but as a white defendant in his court i would be worried about his exclusionary tactics. i would be watching his sentencing very carefully.
Again in the article it does not mention that he asked ANY of the defendants to leave, just the lawyers.
is he allowed to talk with the defendants without counsel? would you want that? julie is off today so i will have to wait on those questions.
that I'm not sure of, hopefully we can get an answer to the question.
(CNN) -- An Atlanta, Georgia, judge who ordered white lawyers out of his courtroom so he could lecture African-American defendants called that decision a "mistake" Tuesday night.
"In retrospect, it was a mistake," Judge Marvin Arrington told CNN. "Because my sheriff said to me, 'Judge, that message should be given to everybody' -- 'Don't violate the law, make something out of yourself, go to school, find a role model, somebody that will help you advance your life.'"
Arrington, who is African-American, is a judge in Fulton County, Georgia, which includes the city of Atlanta.
He said he got fed up seeing a parade of young black defendants shuffle into his courtroom and decided to address them one day last week -- out of the earshot of white lawyers.
"I came out and saw the defendants, and it was about 99.9 percent Afro-Americans," Arrington told CNN affiliate WSB-TV of Atlanta, "and at some point in time, I excused some lawyers -- most of them white -- and said to the young people in here, 'What in the world are you doing with your lives?'"
The judge thought his message would make a greater impact if he delivered it to a black-only audience, he said. Watch judge talk about decision to lecture black defendants »
"I didn't want them to think I was talking down to them; trying to embarrass them or insult them; be derogatory toward them, and I was just saying, 'Please get yourself together,'" Arrington said.
In his Tuesday night appearance on CNN, Arrington told Anderson Cooper that that seeing the same faces walk in and out of his courtroom year after year takes its toll.
"I ask them all the the time, 'What progress are we making with you?' And sometime they cannot answer," he said.
He said he would open his court doors to everyone on Thursday and "I am going to give the same identical speech: 'You've got to do better.'"
so he admits it was a mistake. but i wish his self reflection extended even further. his claims to what his message was seems to indicate that removing any race from the courtroom was foolish at best.
Everyone should go watch the episode of South Park about the South Park flag, where Stan and Kyle are 'racist' because they don't see what's wrong with a flag that depicts four whites hanging a black man -- because they don't see it as four whites hanging a black man, they just see it as four people hanging another person.
I certainly agree with the analogy, although I'm not sure it's neccessarily people who are racist per se, but yes, people concerned with race, whether "positively" or "negatively" do tend to see its influence even when it is questionable. In my opinion anyway.
I am building on a previous theory of EL's which hold that there exists a strictly biological spousal preference based on your own skin colour in Homo sapiens making racism in the species a biological fact. I don't actually share the view.
"I would have gone to the thesaurus for a more erudite word."
-Hashi Lebwohl
Hmm, while I believe that tests do show a marked subconscious preference for your own race in selecting attractiveness in most cases, I think that the biological foundation is more along the lines of people who are different are strangers, strangers are threats, threats are feared/controlled/destroyed.
