sweet home alabama

By Nancy Goldstein RAW STORY COLUMNIST


If you are a poor person of color accused of a capital crime in Alabama, what stands between you and the death penalty?
Not much.
Alabama has no statewide public defender system, and your court-appointed lawyer from the local bar may not be very happy to see you. After all, defending your life will net him barely a third of what he might have made closing a real-estate transaction — assuming he ranked highly enough in the local legal food chain to be awarded these lucrative deals. Besides, being seen with you may strike him as an economic, social, and political liability in a state where professional advancement to the bench depends entirely upon the will of the electorate.
Come trial time, there’s a good chance that you’ll be the only person of color in the courtroom. All 19 of Alabama’s appellate court judges are white, as are 41 of its 42 elected District Attorneys. Odds are 1 in 3 that your jury will be all white as well.
Since Alabama’s resumption of the death penalty in 1975, courts have found that prosecutors illegally excluded black people from serving as jurors in at least 28 capital cases...........

is anyone REALLY surprised here?