The Amerikkkan legal system. Part II

03.07.2007 Source: URL:
http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/94442-legal_system-0

Continued. Read Part I of the article here

Tragically, this judge's observation came too late to save an unjustly
imprisoned man named Maurice Carter. An African-American from Gary, Indiana,
Carter had the misfortune of visiting Berrien County, Michigan around the
same time a white, off-duty police officer from the City of Benton Harbor
was shot and wounded. Benton Harbor is an island of minorities, primarily
African-Americans, most of whom live in poverty just a few miles away from
the multi-million dollar mansions lining Lake Michigan's shoreline.

A drug dealer, seeking a reduced sentence, told police a few years
after the shooting that Carter had been involved. Though this dealer later
recanted and was convicted of perjury, Carter still went to trial in front
of an all-white jury. Even though an African-American woman, who observed
the shooter for several minutes when he patronized a local store, had
testified the shooter was not Carter, the jury chose instead to believe
white witnesses whose "identification" was based on fleeting glimpses of the
perpetrator running from the scene.