Trials to Abolition
A week after a Wisconsin jury acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse of murdering two people and shooting a third at a protest against police violence, another jury found the organizers of the violent far right rally in Charlottesville, Va. in 2017 liable for more than $25 million in damages to 9 people injured at the event. The group included four people who where hurt when Heather Heyer was killed by James Fields, one of the defendants. Fields is already serving a life sentence for Ms. Heyer’s death. Lawyers for the group said that they hoped to deter hate groups from mounting similar toxic spectacles in the future, relying on civil suits in the absence of decisive action by the criminal justice system. “I think this verdict is a message today that this country does not tolerate violence based on racial and religious hatred in any form, and that no one will ever bring violence to the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia, ever again,” said Roberta Kaplan, the lead attorney who organized the case through a nonprofit organization called Integrity First for America.
The next day, the three men who chased and killed Ahmaud Arbery were convicted of murder in Georgia. This conviction almost did not happen. The case almost did not go to trial. It took more than two months to charge Travis McMichael, his father, Greg McMichael, and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan with murder. It was not until a video of the killing was released, bringing national attention, forcing the state to indict the shooters. Coming just weeks before the brutal killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, people were rallied in support of the family. “We came very close to this crime not being prosecuted at all,” said Clark D. Cunningham, a professor at the Georgia State University College of Law. After the Brunswick district attorney and Waycross district attorney recused themselves without charging the men, Cunningham noted two aspects of the case that made the arrests — and subsequent convictions — possible: Greg McMichael’s decision to share the video of the slaying with the public and Arbery’s outspoken family receiving national support and attention.
“We shouldn’t count on those kinds of things for justice to be done,” Cunningham said.
These verdicts have been greeted by many of us with mixed emotions, wanting to celebrate the strength and perseverance of people refusing to accept injustice, yet knowing how deeply flawed the courts system is. As Charles Blow of the NYT said, “Our justice system is so racially biased, so often allowing vigilantes and police officers to kill Black people with impunity, that simply having the system not perform in that way becomes extraordinary.”
Public defender Sarah Lustbader commented, "Looking to these trials to repair social damage, answer a larger question or fulfill some notion of justice is a mistake. Beyond the futility of hope, looking to the criminal system — which was heavily influenced by slave codes and still serves to reinforce racial hierarchies — further centers it in our moral discourse.”
I find my own thoughts drifting back nearly 50 years to a warm spring day in California. There, after an international search, years on the FBI most wanted list, massive organizing and support for her humane treatment and insisting on her innocence, Angela Davis was found not guilty of murder, kidnapping, and criminal conspiracy by an all-white jury.
In the press conference after the verdict, news reporters pressed Ms. Davis to say that the verdict was proof the criminal justice system worked. They wanted her to admit she had a “fair trial.” While acknowledging the joy of the verdict, she insisted to the reporters, "A fair trial would have been no trial at all."
Over this half century the systems of “justice” have become more violent, racist, entrenched, and inhumane. These trials point the way to how much we need to completely alter how we think about one another and responsibilities to protect life. Now, more than ever, the call of the abolitionists is the only path to the future.