Injustice is quiet and quick. 

That’s the most surprising thing about it.  

This morning I was sitting in the pews of the Mecklenburg County courthouse with the Black People’s Community Justice Center watching injustice be done to an 18 year old Black High School senior.

The most stunning thing was the speed and silence of the process.  It was quiet when the judge came to the bench without knowing any of the details of the case. In less than 15 minutes he reached a decision and it was over. It didn’t make a sound when he received a file folder full of letters of support from the community and didn’t read any of them. The court-appointed defense attorney did not even ask for an unsecured bond and spoke softly and hesitantly when asking the judge to lower the bail. The Judge did not raise his voice when he pointed out that the State had not turned over any evidence to the defense even though it had been almost five months, saying mildly that he didn’t understand the delay but ‘urged’ that State to share its evidence with the defense  but not ordering them to do so. The young man’s middle-class married parents, who have enough money to put up some bail, but not enough money to put up the amount of bail that was set by the prosecution, were never able to meet with their son’s attorney or say a word.

When their son laid his head down on the table and began weeping when he was told he will have to wait in jail for more than two years before his case comes to trial, he did not make a sound.

If this young man were white and from South Charlotte and facing the same charges, he’d be home with his family. But he is not, so he will not. Sitting in the gallery and watching all the Black defendants approach the judge shackled and wearing prison scrubs while all the white defendants approach the bench from the gallery wearing their Sunday best is a silent outrage. I sat and watched while a citizen of the United States was denied due process, denied effective counsel, denied access to the evidence the State had gathered against him. And all of it was calm and quiet and orderly, as if it is the usual way it happens every day. Because it is. 

I am the daughter of two lawyers. I grew up coloring under conference tables, watching The Paper Chase and begging my Dad to tell me about his cases instead of bedtime stories. My Dad was a defense attorney. He taught my sisters and me to believe in the American Justice system. My parents didn’t have us memorize bible verses, instead we learned ‘innocent until proven guilty,’ ‘judicial impartiality,’ evidentiary right of discovery and the constitutional right to a speedy trial before a jury of one’s peers. They told us that Justice was blind and taught us that all people are equal before the law.  My dad was proud to be part of an adversarial justice system, explaining that it was ‘better that a hundred guilty men go free than one innocent person be convicted.’ But it turns out, all of that was a fairytale.

Because in real life, everyone knows that the legal system is unjust. If you don’t believe me, ask anyone who works in any part of the legal system. After reading Bryan Stevenson’s book ‘Just Mercy’ and being stunned at the egregious and pervasive miscarriages of justice, I asked my Dad to read it.  To be honest, I hoped he would tell me that the cases Mr. Stevenson described were outliers or anomalies. But when he finished the book, he told me he believed every word.  What I failed to understand as a child was that my father was a corporate defense attorney.  Everyone involved in the cases he tried had money to hire not just competent but excellent counsel. But in a criminal court, like the one I sat in this morning, only those with financial means can purchase equal treatment under the law.  As Mr. Stevenson says, we have a criminal justice system in this country that treats you much better if you are rich and guilty than if you are poor and innocent.

And that’s the system that worked while barely making a sound in the courtroom this morning. A young Black man went back to jail, not because he had been convicted of a crime or because he was considered a risk to the community, but because his parents could pay some, but not enough money, to secure his freedom while his case slowly works its way through the system. His court appointed attorney hadn’t prepared and literally didn’t raise her voice to advocate for him. The state may or may not turn over the evidence it has against him to his attorney. His attorney may or may not object. The wheels of justice are silently grinding up his future.

And the craziest thing is, this community will turn out and pay big money to hear a brilliant author and activist like Bryan Stevenson describe the brokenness of the criminal justice system.  We’ll give him a deafening standing ovation. But none of that helps the young man who stood silently in a quiet room before a judge this morning. It’s not enough to know that there is one criminal justice system for the wealthy and another for the poor. If you believe there should be equal justice under the law, then you have to speak up and show up and make change. Because injustice doesn’t have to make a sound, so justice has to be loud and sound the alarm to disrupt it.