President Obama signed into law on August 3, 2010 a bill that would end the disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine. The old law was responsible for African Americans, the majority of crack cocaine users and dealers, receiving stiffer sentences than their white counterparts who use and sell powder cocaine. Racial disparity has long been a bane of the criminal justice system. Now a new study gives light to another long-held belief that people of color fare worse than lighter skinned defendants in court.
Criminal Justice Reform recently reported that two University of Hawaii researchers, in an effort to test bias, showed photos to mock jurors. The jurors were given facts about a case of armed robbery. Some of the jurors were shown photos of a dark skinned defendant, and others were shown photos of someone who was lighter complected. Even though all the facts in the case were identical,the jurors decided that the dark skinned defendant was guilty more often than the light skinned defendant.
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