Brian Banks, released from prison for a crime he did not commit last year, has been signed by the Atlanta Falcons. This is, of course, great news. If you look at the end of the book only, this is a feel-good story. If you look at the pages that came before it, it’s not so happy.
Banks also spent five years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. That certainly is not a feel-good story. That he didn’t have to complete the sentence for which he is wrongfully committed shouldn’t make us gloss over the fact that there is a system in place which wrongfully convicts people.
We see shows like CSI, or Law and Order, on TV all the time, along with their many and varied spin-offs and sequels. We see how we’re supposed to “trust the system” but the system isn’t always inherently trustworthy.
And truthfully, the really sad and uncomfortable part of it all is that there is a massive racial aspect to this. We want to focus on the feel-good part and ignore the feel-bad part. That doesn’t do away with the fact that people go to jail for no reason. And for the most part, they’re black.
According to the Innocence Project, who is the predominant figure in getting people falsely convicted of crimes released, 303 people have had their convictions overturned with DNA evidence. Of those 303 people, the race of 297 was reported, and of that 297, 188 were African American.
That means that about 63 percent of wrongful convictions are against African Americans, who account for 12.6 percent of the population overall. In other words your chances of going to prison without committing a crime are 20 times greater if you’re African American.
And while these overall numbers are small, they only reflect cases where the cases were overturned by DNA evidence. They don’t account for cases where the convictions were overturned for other means. More importantly, they don’t account for the people who still sit in prison without having committed a crime.
Banks is not the last wrongfully convicted man, and he is most certainly not the last wrongfully convicted black man.
According to the Innocence Project over 70 percent of the time people are wrongfully convicted, bad eye-witness testimonies played a part in that. Furthermore, cross-racial identifications played a part in at least 40 percent of them, a number which is probably much higher but race isn’t typically recorded for witnesses. It is a well-established fact that such identifications are less reliable.
Banks was not convicted because of a mistaken eyewitness account. He was convicted because his accuser, Wanetta Gibson, a black woman, was lying when she accused him of the rape. The conviction was only overturned when she was taped admitting to the lie.
So then this has nothing to do with race right? This is just another example of someone trying to “play the race card” and shoe-horn it in where it doesn’t belong.
Not really. Partly he was sent to jail because a woman lied. Partly though, he was sent to jail because he plead guilty, fearing a jury would believe the lie. the jury believed the lie.
Studies show that juries are more likely to believe that African Americans accused of violent crimes are guilty than they are whites. Furthermore, these studies indicate that in trials where the jury is interracial, as opposed to all white, or almost all white, the bias is likely to increase.
In other words, Banks was convicted because he was accused. Presumption of innocence has a provable racial preference.
The very sad reality is that the reason you’re 20 times as likely to be sent to prison without doing anything illegal if your black is that the system doesn’t work. We, as a society (as every other society which has come before us) are prone to racism.
No, we’re not going to make this problem go away overnight. And no, I’m not trying to make everything about race. I’m acknowledging this is about race. And sometimes, just acknowledging a thing goes a long way towards solving it. You’re not going to accidentally fix a problem that you didn’t know existed, and certainly not one this entrenched.
It’s time for us to stop celebrating that we elected a black man President as “proof” that racism no longer exists in America. It clearly does and clearly it’s not always the guilty who pay the price. I’m not asking everyone to go out and rally, or put up tents and waive banners. I just ask one thing. Take a moment and let this single thought register.
“This. Is. Wrong. “
Banks makes for a great sports’ story. I’m happy as a clam for him, and I hope he has a great, albeit shortened, career with the Atlanta Falcons. But let’s not brush aside the one thing this story can make us do. Be aware.