Walter Scott and the Criminal Injustice System

And also in the human rights revolution, if something isn't done, and done in a hurry, to bring the colored peoples of the world out of their long years of poverty, their long years of hurt and neglect, the whole world is doomed.

n  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 47 years ago this week

The headline: North Charleston officer faces murder charge after video shows him shooting man in back, April 7

South Carolina Officer Is Charged With Murder in Black Man's Death, April 7

The dig: How can we address the recurring problem of police violence against black males?

The Facts

The story and video are linked above: earlier this week a black male, Walter Scott, was killed by a police officer after being confronted for a slight violation—here a broken taillight. The incident was caught on video where it is clear Mr. Scott was fleeing from the officer and shows no evidence that Mr. Scott was either armed or dangerous. The NAACP has previously claimed racial profiling by the police department in question. We have read very similar incident descriptions too many times over the past year. However, the officer in this video has been charged with murder—something which has not occurred enough over the past year.

Legally, under Tennessee v. Garner (1985) an officer may not use deadly force against an “apparently unarmed, nondangerous feeling suspect” unless that force is 1) “necessary to prevent the escape”, and 2) “the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat” of death or serious injury. The officer’s actions must be viewed from the objective standard of a reasonable officer. Thus, unless a reasonable officer would have believed that a seemingly unarmed, pentagenarian Mr. Scott posed a significant threat of death or serious injury to a person, the charge here is valid.

In fairness to the officer, there appears to have been an altercation between the parties before the video began. In fairness to Walter Scott, the threat of that altercation clearly ended when the video shows Mr. Scott turning and running away. Moreover, the officer’s account of the encounter contradicts that video evidence. A dead man may tell no tales, but fortunately a camera does.

What does this mean?

While a guilty verdict in this case may bring justice in the courtroom, it would do nothing to address the injustice in the streets. In isolation, the case of Walter Scott may have been viewed as a tragedy in which the guilty party was property brought to trial. But after cases in Florida, Missouri, Ohio, New York, and elsewhere around the US, it cannot be viewed as such. Justice is not only a prosecutorial decision to charge or a jury verdict. Justice is a complex system which, in the US, begins with the disproportionate harassment of blacks by police and ends with disproportionate populations of blacks incarcerated generally and on death row. Another black life was lost this week that didn’t need to be. A murder charge won’t change that.

These recent cases which have caught the nation’s attention are icebergs in a sea of blood. They are not isolated, but simply so dramatic as to catch the attention of those privileged enough to not have seen or experienced more subtle—and more prevalent—episodes throughout their lives.

Complicated solutions

If we as a society are looking for one incident, one wrongdoer, or one problem to address and move on, we will not solve the bias in the American criminal justice system against blacks, and black males in particular. From unconscious personal biases and latent systemic discrimination to sentencing guidelines and police force training, there is society-wide work to be done. For any change to occur we must take the available statistics seriously, listen to the daily difficulties of our fellow Americans, and decide which campaigning politicians would best address this deeply important issue.

Two score and seven years ago this week Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. proclaimed that he had reached the mountaintop and saw the promised land of equality and freedom before him. While he knew we would not reach such a place in his lifetime, he may nonetheless have been mistaken. Insofar as our criminal justice system in 2015 is concerned, tough climbing seems to lie ahead before we can take our gentle descent to the land of which Dr. King spoke, and for which he so stubbornly fought. But with reflection and compassion we can take steps to address some of the deep causes of injustice in the American criminal justice system. We owe that much to the innocent lives, like Walter Scott, that we have lost.

Why is economic inequality bad?

The headline: Economic Inequality: It’s Far Worse Than You Think, March 31, 2015;

Why More Education Won’t Fix Economic Inequality, March 31, 2015

The dig: Why is economic inequality bad?

Economic inequality exists but isn’t unique

Economic inequality in the US is not new; twenty years ago, the top 1% of Americans owned “between 40% and 50%” of wealth in the US. Nor is it unique, as other countries such as Canada, Australia, and the UK have also been experiencing a rise in economic inequality over the past few decades, albeit to a less extreme rate. The US is unique, however, among developed states with respect to the degree of economic inequality.

Source: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jep.27.3.3

The headlining Scientific American article notes that even self-identified political conservatives know economic inequality exists and ideally would like to see less of it. Despite this, we have all heard the argument that our tax code is already sufficiently progressive. The rich already pay more in taxes than the rest, what more should society do?

Source: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/43373

While it is true that the top 20% of Americans do share 67.9% of tax liabilities, that same top 20% “own more than 84% of the wealth”. This means that the lower 80% of Americans control less than 16% of the country’s wealth, yet pay double that, 32.1%, of the tax burden.

Economic inequality is cause for worry

So we can see that economic inequality is rising. That much has been covered widely in popular media. One question which is less often discussed is why inequality is a societal ill at all. Three reasons follow.

First, economic inequality cannot be separated from political inequality. Following the Citizens United cases and other related US Supreme Court cases which have struck down many regulations regarding campaign financing, our elections have seen an unprecedented flood of money. And it’s not only legislative and executive elections: money has also penetrated judicial elections in pervasive ways. Thus, as increasing economic inequality creates greater differences in the disposable incomes and policy interests of Americans, it will lead to stark difference in the nature and amount that American interact with political campaigns. This may lead—and probably has already led—to cases being decided and laws being passed, enforced, and interpreted with bias toward those with the funds to contribute to campaign war chests.

Second, inter-generational mobility is correlated with income equality (insert standard ‘correlation does not imply causation’ warning here). This makes intuitive sense: the greater differences in economic context in which children are born, the greater the differences of the resulting lives of the children. At present, that traditional American notion that one must simply work hard in order to overcome any adversity is all but a falsity: educated children from poor backgrounds have lower incomes than uneducated children from wealthy backgrounds. However, note that it is difficult and perhaps impossible to account for non-economic contributions, such as genetics and parenting. While these non-economic factors are important, they aren’t as important as financial influences.

Third, happiness increases with economic equality. This is likely due to increased perceptions of fairness and societal trust; people are less happy when they see huge gaps in wealth. The few haves may be happy, but the have nots see the haves as unfairly gaming the system. While the correlation has been challenged by Columbia researchers, they nonetheless concede that humans derive displeasure from their natural instinct to compare their economic station to others around them.

There are many other possible correlations, such as health and conflict, which are continuously debated in academic literature. I’ll leave those for the reader. Oddly, some argue from the concept of fairness: regardless of the results, vast economic inequality is just not fair. I find this argument highly unpersuasive. If economic equality didn’t correlate with core principles such as political influence, social mobility, equality of opportunity, or even just happiness, policy focus should be on poverty reduction instead of income inequality. Of itself, what does economic equality achieve within a society? Even in the philosophies of the Yong Hegelians, the intellectual inspiration for communism and socialism, economic equality is merely a means to an end. As discussed above, inequality correlates with sufficient ills to articulate reasons to combat it without invoking such as argument.

Where to go from here

As this post did not address possible causes of the problem of economic inequality, it will not address possible solutions, either. Those are both important discussions, of course. But it should be clear that increasing economic inequality is related to various public policy concerns which should be important to all Americans, and as such mitigating it is a reasonably policy goal itself.

It will be interesting to watch the 2016 elections to see if this issue is addressed and, if so, how it is framed. Pay attention to which organizations, parties, and candidates seek to mitigate inequality and which do not—and be sure to ask what interests dictate the decisions of each. Don’t hold your breath, though; deep pockets might just keep everyone quiet. 

Hello world: first post

Hello readers and followers! This is a new blog I hope to keep, fresh after an eventful week in news. My goal with this new platform is to explore some of the deeper issues behind the headlines.

I hope to bring disciplines such as law, philosophy, and political science into focus to offer a better lens for viewing the day's issues than most news outlets allow their writers to do. 

My initial goal is to post every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. If for some reason there are no news stories which jump out and grab my attention, I may pick a less current headline to discuss. 

Feedback is always welcome and I hope you share the posts that you enjoy.