Color makes a BIG difference in Cuyahoga County Justice

In this years election between McCain & Barack race has been brought into politics on a national level like never before. Most of it centers around if you are white and don't vote for Barack you are racist.

It has been sold for years that the Democrats are the saviors of the black race - they cloaked the civil-rights movement around their party to hide thier sins of being the biggest obstacle in overcoming slavery. Many blacks have had this thought indoctrinated into their minds over the years and will blindly vote for a Democrat. For many of the younger ones - this is all they know.

All too often, facts - mean nothing. Maybe some of the blacks in Cuyahoga County that blindly support the area Democrats will be hit hard by these facts...

From the PD --

But there is no denying the key role prosecutors play in charging people with felonies -- or bargaining a felony charge down to a misdemeanor, a much less serious blight on a person's record.

Offering plea deals, even though they can ultimately be rejected by judges, is the sole prerogative of prosecutors.

Among all defendants indicted in Cuyahoga County on a single, low-level drug-possession charge over the last four years who were convicted after pleading guilty, white people were 55 percent more likely than black people to have their charges reduced to a misdemeanor. In most cases, it was to something called "attempted" possession of drugs, even when records indicate the defendant had the drugs and there was nothing "attempted" about it.

Even among those making their first appearance in Common Pleas Court in at least 15 years, white people were 40 percent more likely than black people to get a misdemeanor. Among those with no prior convictions here, whites were 27 percent more likely. More...

The Cuyahoga County Prosecutor is Bill Mason, a Democrat. Mason, running for reelection this year, is being challenged by Annette Butler.

So while the blacks in this area continue blindly supporting Mason - he continues blindly,unfairly, and almost criminally, charging them with a higher rate of felony charges - without regard for the law.

But it does not stop there, it appears the prosecutors office has hijacked one of the available intervention programs....

And since 2000, a black person has been 12.7 times more likely than a white person to be sent to a state prison from Cuyahoga County on drug charges.

....defense attorneys said prosecutors frequently offer or withhold EIP as a possible option in plea discussions. And several judges said in interviews that they believe themselves bound by the prosecutor's judgment on whether to allow a defendant into EIP.

"The determination of whether they get in there or not is up to the prosecutor's office," said Judge Judith Kilbane-Koch, echoing a frequently expressed view from the bench. "That's the way it's always been done."

But public defender Walter Camino, repeating a view common among defense attorneys, said that courtroom prosecutors routinely maintain that they run EIP and that they "are the ones that allow you to enter."

Black EIP applicants in the Plain Dealer sample were denied at four times the rate of those seeking "intervention in lieu." And they were 72 percent more likely than white applicants to be rejected for EIP. More...

I fully support being tough on crime, probably a little tougher than most -- but I believe justice should be color blind and dispensed equally. It appears as if Mason does not share these same views.