A thought experiment: Suppose Kate Steinle had been black?

[as seen on tv]

One of the great things about 21st century physics is that the universe is not “settled science”. There might not be just one universe. There might be an infinite number of them, with only minor degrees of difference between them in some cases.

Let’s visit the imaginary universe where Kate Steinle – who happens to be black in this one – was shot on San Francisco’s Pier 14 by a 6 time loser/illegal immigrant named Jose Jimenez Garcia Zapata.

As in our universe, the San Francisco police staunchly defend harboring a violent fugitive with previoius convictions. The court appoints an attorney, since Zapata has no money or property, except for the gun he stole, and used to shoot Steinle. A jury of 12 citizens is empaneled.

Does the alternative universe jury ALSO find Jose not guilty? Or are they worried about the potential for riots (like those which took place in Baltimore, Cleveland, etc) consuming their lovely city, and maybe even reducing their property values?

I have a theory as to how they’d rule. And I probably don’t need to share it.

And if I’m right, the frightening part is that we’re not living in the right universe. It’s the one with the crazy, illogical outcomes.

 

[Arkady]

One of the great things about 21st century physics is that the universe is not “settled science”. There might not be just one universe. There might be an infinite number of them, with only minor degrees of difference between them in some cases.

Let’s visit the imaginary universe where Kate Steinle – who happens to be black in this one – was shot on San Francisco’s Pier 14 by a 6 time loser/illegal immigrant named Jose Jimenez Garcia Zapata.

As in our universe, the San Francisco police staunchly defend harboring a violent fugitive with previoius convictions. The court appoints an attorney, since Zapata has no money or property, except for the gun he stole, and used to shoot Steinle. A jury of 12 citizens is empaneled.

Does the alternative universe jury ALSO find Jose not guilty? Or are they worried about the potential for riots (like those which took place in Baltimore, Cleveland, etc) consuming their lovely city, and maybe even reducing their property values?

I have a theory as to how they’d rule. And I probably don’t need to share it.

And if I’m right, the frightening part is that we’re not living in the right universe. It’s the one with the crazy, illogical outcomes.

View attachment 37919

Tough to say how this particular case would have played out if the racial dynamics were shuffled. However, there's a long-standing issue with white perpetrators being acquitted for crimes against black victims, by all-white juries. It's referred to as "discriminatory acquittal."

http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=wmborj

So, the best guess would be that if the victim in this case had been black, it would have been even tougher for prosecutors to get a tough charge to stick against the perpetrator.

 

[as seen on tv]

Tough to say how this particular case would have played out if the racial dynamics were shuffled. However, there's a long-standing issue with white perpetrators being acquitted for crimes against black victims, by all-white juries. It's referred to as "discriminatory acquittal."

http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=wmborj

So, the best guess would be that if the victim in this case had been black, it would have been even tougher for prosecutors to get a tough charge to stick against the perpetrator.

I don't think there's been an all white jury in my lifetime.

an attempt to empanel one would bring immediate objections by defense counsel, and grounds for appeal after a verdict.

 

[Arkady]

I don't think there's been an all white jury in my lifetime.

Then what I'd suggest is you step outside the Fox News media bubble that you've hermetically sealed yourself into. Your view of reality is so bizarrely out-of-step with the real world that I fear for your sanity. Even in areas with lots of African Americans, all-white juries are common. For example:

http://blog.nola.com/jamesgill/2009/08/how_verdict_policy_hurts_black.html

"In Jefferson Parish, where the population is 23 percent black, 22 percent of juries are all white..."

If juries were assigned randomly from a pool that was 23% black, twelve-person juries with no blacks on them would randomly pop up just 4.34% of the time (simple probability calculation: .77^12). So, all-white juries are popping up there over five times as often as can be explained randomly. The system is favoring the formation of all-white juries. That comes by way of prosecutors using peremptory challenges to object to the impaneling of black people, especially in cases with non-white defendants. In 93% of trials, prosecutors struck a higher percentage of blacks than of others:

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/17/...acks-from-juries-raises-renewed-scrutiny.html

This matters since all-white jury pools convict black defendants significantly more often than they do whites:

https://today.duke.edu/2012/04/jurystudy

Do a Google search for "all-white jury convicts" and you'll pull up an endless stream of stories about recent all-white juries. Here's one:

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2014/11/0...-of-5-felony-counts-pros-wants-life-sentence/

 

[EatTheRich]

I don't think there's been an all white jury in my lifetime.

an attempt to empanel one would bring immediate objections by defense counsel, and grounds for appeal after a verdict.

Ammon Bundy was acquitted by an all-white jury. In my hometown which is 92% white, all-white juries are not unusual.

 

[as seen on tv]

Ammon Bundy was acquitted by an all-white jury. In my hometown which is 92% white, all-white juries are not unusual.

point well taken. I don't think there's been an all white jury in my hometown of Baltimore, or in san Francisco where the Zagata trial was held, in our lifetimes though

 

[as seen on tv]

Then what I'd suggest is you step outside the Fox News media bubble that you've hermetically sealed yourself into. Your view of reality is so bizarrely out-of-step with the real world that I fear for your sanity. Even in areas with lots of African Americans, all-white juries are common. For example:

http://blog.nola.com/jamesgill/2009/08/how_verdict_policy_hurts_black.html

"In Jefferson Parish, where the population is 23 percent black, 22 percent of juries are all white..."

If juries were assigned randomly from a pool that was 23% black, twelve-person juries with no blacks on them would randomly pop up just 4.34% of the time (simple probability calculation: .77^12). So, all-white juries are popping up there over five times as often as can be explained randomly. The system is favoring the formation of all-white juries. That comes by way of prosecutors using peremptory challenges to object to the impaneling of black people, especially in cases with non-white defendants. In 93% of trials, prosecutors struck a higher percentage of blacks than of others:

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/17/...acks-from-juries-raises-renewed-scrutiny.html

This matters since all-white jury pools convict black defendants significantly more often than they do whites:

https://today.duke.edu/2012/04/jurystudy

Do a Google search for "all-white jury convicts" and you'll pull up an endless stream of stories about recent all-white juries. Here's one:

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2014/11/0...-of-5-felony-counts-pros-wants-life-sentence/

my bubble consists of:

• my hometown of Baltimore, which just had its 319th "post eddie gray" homicide this week
• the Baltimore sun
• the Washington post
• the wall street journal
• PBS, CBS, NBC, ABC, and to a lesser extent Fox and MSNBC

it would be willing to guess my bubble is larger, more diverse, and has a higher IQ of content writers than yours.

 

[Spamature]

One of the great things about 21st century physics is that the universe is not “settled science”. There might not be just one universe. There might be an infinite number of them, with only minor degrees of difference between them in some cases.

Let’s visit the imaginary universe where Kate Steinle – who happens to be black in this one – was shot on San Francisco’s Pier 14 by a 6 time loser/illegal immigrant named Jose Jimenez Garcia Zapata.

As in our universe, the San Francisco police staunchly defend harboring a violent fugitive with previoius convictions. The court appoints an attorney, since Zapata has no money or property, except for the gun he stole, and used to shoot Steinle. A jury of 12 citizens is empaneled.

Does the alternative universe jury ALSO find Jose not guilty? Or are they worried about the potential for riots (like those which took place in Baltimore, Cleveland, etc) consuming their lovely city, and maybe even reducing their property values?

I have a theory as to how they’d rule. And I probably don’t need to share it.

And if I’m right, the frightening part is that we’re not living in the right universe. It’s the one with the crazy, illogical outcomes.

View attachment 37919

If she were black you wouldn't know a thing about her.

 

[Arkady]

it would be willing to guess my bubble is larger, more diverse, and has a higher IQ of content writers than yours.

If you're right about that, then it's a really poor reflection on you. It's one thing for you to have leaped to the absurd conclusion that there hadn't been an all-white jury in your lifetime if you're deprived of meaningful information about the outside world, because you're entombed in the right-wing media sarcophagus. But it would take a special kind of brain damage to believe such a thing despite reading on a regular basis about all-white juries in a broader media diet.

For example, just taking one of the many sources you claim are in your bubble, I Google searched and found 272 references to an 'all-white jury' on washingtonpost.com. Sampling the first page of the results, it looks like the majority of these referred to all-white juries in your lifetime.

For example, this one recounts that the jury considering the Oregon stand-off was all-white:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...oregon-standoff-trial/?utm_term=.f032b3efa137

 

[Arkady]

If she were black you wouldn't know a thing about her.

That's a very insightful point. She became a national story because a white victim of an illegal immigrant fit Trump's propaganda campaign.

 

[4/15]

One of the great things about 21st century physics is that the universe is not “settled science”. There might not be just one universe. There might be an infinite number of them, with only minor degrees of difference between them in some cases.

Let’s visit the imaginary universe where Kate Steinle – who happens to be black in this one – was shot on San Francisco’s Pier 14 by a 6 time loser/illegal immigrant named Jose Jimenez Garcia Zapata.

As in our universe, the San Francisco police staunchly defend harboring a violent fugitive with previoius convictions. The court appoints an attorney, since Zapata has no money or property, except for the gun he stole, and used to shoot Steinle. A jury of 12 citizens is empaneled.

Does the alternative universe jury ALSO find Jose not guilty? Or are they worried about the potential for riots (like those which took place in Baltimore, Cleveland, etc) consuming their lovely city, and maybe even reducing their property values?

I have a theory as to how they’d rule. And I probably don’t need to share it.

And if I’m right, the frightening part is that we’re not living in the right universe. It’s the one with the crazy, illogical outcomes.

View attachment 37919

The fire arm was found on the pier in a towel. Please get your lies correct.

 

[Fast Eddy]

If she was Black the media would be going crazy, sad but true.

 

[Dawg]

They'd have tied the illegal to two donkey's and shot in the air