So, this White lawyer walks into a courtroom….
William Porter trial Day 4
The courtroom scene must have been daunting and more than a little confusing for the two White lawyers defending the indicted, former police officer, William Porter.
Hell, it might have even felt a little surreal walking into a courtroom with your Black Defendant, facing a Black Judge, Black Clerk, mostly Black potential jurors and a Black woman Prosecutor who has made it her life’s mission to put your guy behind bars. Or as the kids would put it…Marilyn Mosby “ain’t playing.”
What these White male lawyers have always known is that the legal deck is ridiculously stacked in their favor. They have operated and practiced law within the shameful legal reality that White Attorneys make up about 88% of all lawyers in the United States and White males and White females make up about 83% of all judges.
So, imagine how visually jarred they were when they walked into Judge William’s courtroom after a jury of 8 Black men and women were seated.
Obviously, without a confession, one can not know for certain that these White veteran defense attorneys were ethnically shook. However, some of their choices during the opening suggest they were “off” of their normal legal game.
It was a standard defense opening at first. The kind of defense opening that all of us who have practiced criminal law have delivered at one time or another. The defense attorney begins by describing how great a guy the defendant is. William Porter’s attorney told the jury William was a “good cop”, a “young cop” and a cop with “no record of misconduct”. But then the opening began to take on a different tone and energy when the Defense looked into the faces of the majority African American jury and said;
“You may yearn to hold someone accountable, but facts don't bend to your predilections”
Let’s unpack that statement. And just so we are all on the same page…
Understand, the Defense is operating in a majority African American playing field. And he is talking to a majority African American jury about the possible murder of an African American victim. Murder by a White Institution — the Police Department.
It seems more than an odd choice and uber condescending to look into those African American majority faces and risk arguing that: believing a police officer should be accountable for wrongdoing is (1) a bias/bad thing and (2) this “wrong” African American world view must be set aside for my “White Attorney” version of the “facts”. Even the word choice “yearn” has a whiff of white male snark to it….especially since he is addressing a mostly Black and mostly female jury.
And it gets worse.
In the final moments of his opening statement, William Porter’s Defense attorney concluded with:
“Let’s show Baltimore the whole damn system is NOT guilty as hell.”
As anyone who covered the unrest in Baltimore following the death of Freddie Gray knows, “the whole damn system IS guilty as hell” was a familiar mantra.
And yet, in front of an mostly African American jury, standing on hundreds of years of American racist, lawless, blood-filled criminal justice history, the white lawyer representing a police officer, tells the jury to stand with him. Stand with him to demonstrate to the world that the criminal justice system works when his client is set free.
This opening was mind boggling in its execution and yet totally explainable.
In America, how often does a White defense attorney representing a Police Officer have to stand in front of an African American Judge, argue what justice looks like before a mostly African American jury and battle a hold-no-punches, pro justice, African American Woman prosecutor?
Answer: never.
So, this white Attorney walks into a courtroom…..
