Does the Ethnicity of a Judge Matter: Liberal Hypocrisy

From Front Page Magazine:

Annoyed at federal judge Gonzalo P. Curiel’s persistent rulings against him in the Trump University case (brought by a law firm that has paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for speeches by Bill and Hillary), Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said that maybe it’s because the judge is a second-generation Mexican immigrant.

The entire media — and most of the GOP — have spent 10 months telling us that Mexicans in the United States are going to HATE Trump for saying he’ll build a wall. Now they’re outraged that Trump thinks one Mexican hates him for saying he’ll build a wall.

. . .

Has anyone ever complained about the ethnicity of white judges or white juries? I’ve done some research and it turns out ... THAT’S ALL WE’VE HEARD FOR THE PAST 40 YEARS.

The New York Times alone has published hundreds of articles, editorials, op-eds, movie reviews, sports articles and crossword puzzles darkly invoking “white judges” and “all-white” juries, as if that is ipso facto proof of racist justice.

Two weeks ago — that’s not an error; I didn’t mean to type “decades” and it came out “weeks” — the Times published an op-ed by a federal appeals judge stating: “All-white juries risk undermining the perception of justice in minority communities, even if a mixed-race jury would have reached the same verdict or imposed the same sentence.”

In other words, even when provably not unfair, white jurors create the “perception” of unfairness solely by virtue of the color of their skin.

Innocence Project co-founder Barry Scheck’s entire career of springing criminals would be gone if it were generally accepted that we can’t question judges or juries based on race or ethnicity. Writing about the release of Glenn Ford, a black man convicted of robbing a jewelry store and murdering the owner, Scheck claimed that one of the most important factors in Ford’s death sentence was the “all-white jury.”

On the other hand, the evidence against Ford included: His two black friends telling police he’d shown them jewelry the day of the murder, another Ford acquaintance swearing he’d had a .38 in his waistband — the murder weapon was a .38 — and the gunshot residue on Ford’s hand. His conviction was overturned many years later, on the theory that his black friends had committed the murder, then framed him.

So we know 1) the “real killers” were also black; and 2) any jury would have convicted Ford on that evidence.

Here’s how the Times described Ford’s trial: “A black man convicted of murder by an all-white jury in Louisiana in 1984 and sentenced to die, tapped into an equally old and painful vein of race.”

I have approximately 1 million more examples of the media going mental about a “white judge” or “all-white jury,” and guess what? In none of them were any of the white people involved members of organizations dedicated to promoting white people, called “THE RACE.”

Say, does anyone remember if it ever came up that the Ferguson police force was all white? Someone check that.

I don’t want to upset you New York Times editorial board, but perhaps we should revisit the results of the Nuremberg trials. Those were presided over by — TRIGGER WARNING! — “all white” juries. (How do we really know if Hermann Göring was guilty without hearing women’s and Latino voices?)

The model of a fair jury was the O.J. trial. Nine blacks, one Hispanic and two whites, who had made up their minds before the lawyers’ opening statements. (For my younger readers: O.J. was guilty; the jury acquitted him after 20 seconds of deliberation.) At the end of the trial, one juror gave O.J. the black power salute. Nothing to see here. It was Mark Fuhrman’s fault!

In defiance of everyday experience, known facts and common sense, we are all required to publicly endorse the left’s religious belief that whites are always racist, but women and minorities are incapable of any form of bias. If you say otherwise, well, that’s “textbook racism,” according to Paul Ryan.

At least when we’re talking about American blacks, there’s a history of white racism, so the double standard is not so enraging. What did we ever do to Mexicans? Note to Hispanics, Muslims, women, immigrants and gays: You’re not black.

Other than a few right-wingers, no one denounced now-sitting Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor for her “wise Latina” speech, in which she said “our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.”

But Trump is a “racist” for saying the same thing.

Six months ago, a Times editorial demanded that the Republican Senate confirm Obama judicial nominee Luis Felipe Restrepo, on the grounds that “[a]s a Hispanic,” Restrepo would bring “ethnic ... diversity to the court.”

You see how confusing this is. On one hand, it’s vital that we have more women and Latinos on the courts because white men can’t be trusted to be fair. But to suggest that women and Latinos could ever be unfair in the way that white men can, well, that’s “racist.”

The effrontery of this double standard is so blinding, that the only way liberals can bluff their way through it is with indignation. DO I HEAR YOU RIGHT? ARE YOU SAYING A JUDGE’S ETHNICITY COULD INFLUENCE HIS DECISIONS? (Please, please, please don’t bring up everything we’ve said about white judges and juries for the past four decades.)

Pointing out liberal hypocrisy on this issue does not mean Trump was wise to raise it. Bringing up the fiasco that was Trump University is simply a bad tactic. What Trump should be doing is to convince conservatives that he has at least some understanding of policy, and sympathy for at least some parts of their agenda.

He should be wooing independents with a cogent critique of Obama’s performance, and Hillary’s history, temperament and policies. He soon enough won’t have Bernie Sanders to do that for him!

Instead, the undisciplined and erratic Trump vents about what’s gotten under his skin on any particular day. And, because Hillary is such a poor candidate, Trump might just be the next president.