ARE ETHICAL STANDARDS DIFFERENT FOR BLACKS?

All criminal defense attorneys know that the courts will likely come down harder on a black defendant. There are two main reasons for this. One is that white judges can not see the fear concealed in the arrogance of a black defendant, and react to the arrogance. Second is that black judges do not want to seem to be giving blacks a break, so they often err on the side of harsher sentences.

Now the House of Representatives is going after two black members for ethics violations.

One of accused black members has said, "But everybody does it." The news laughed at that defense. But it is truly a defense, called selective prosecution, and is a violation of due process of law. (Law expects equal treatment for everyone.)

The second one is a black woman in trouble for setting up a meeting, which she did not attend, regarding a bank and the Treasury Department. The charge is that her husband had, six months prior to the meeting, served on the bank's Board of Directors.

I remember how angry I was 35 years ago, when a woman attorney told me that women attorneys had to be better than men attorneys in order to succeed. I said that I should be judged as equal to a man, that I should not have to be better than a man.

It is really too bad that the woman attorney was right, and I was wrong.

I think the woman attorney was also right if we substitute 'black' for 'woman', and 'white' for 'man', so that the statement reads, "a black attorney has to be better than a white attorney in order to succeed."

Why can't we make both statement incorrect?

I wait for the day that both those statements will be incorrect.