The Sarasota Herald-Tribune has undertaken and published a comprehensive and alarming review of sentencing in criminal cases in that state: Florida's Broken Sentencing System. A key and central conclusion:
Now, prejudice wears a black robe.
Half a century after the civil rights movement, trial judges throughout Florida sentence blacks to harsher punishment than whites, a Herald-Tribune investigation found.
They offer blacks fewer chances to avoid jail or scrub away felonies.
They give blacks more time behind bars — sometimes double the sentences of whites accused of the same crimes under identical circumstances.
The entire project can be read here.
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