Redressing imbalance in our courts

By GILDA COBB-HUNTER

Guest columnist

Every day in South Carolina, hundreds of young African-American men and women stand before white men in black robes as justice is dispensed. Sadly, this all-too-familiar occurrence has created an aura of disenfranchisement and unfairness. While African-Americans comprise almost 30 percent of our state’s population, they comprise only 6.1 percent of our trial judges. Simply put, this is unjust.

Both Gov. Mark Sanford and Chief Justice Jean Toal have recognized this discrepancy and said it is time to change. They have challenged the General Assembly to redress this imbalance and to make the principle of racial diversity an important consideration in judicial elections.

Unfortunately, the immediate response of some of my fellow legislators has been to dismiss the problem by saying, “your concern about racial diversity is all well and good, but we must not sacrifice the quality of our judges for the sake of diversity.” While I agree with the sentiment, I find its premise absurd. There is absolutely no evidence that achieving racial diversity would require any sacrifice in judicial quality.

On the contrary, the General Assembly’s judicial screening process has routinely yielded eminently qualified African-American judicial candidates who, despite their qualifications, have failed to receive a majority of the legislators’ votes. The problem is not the lack of qualified African-Americans, but the legislators’ lack of resolve to elect them.

A representative judiciary promotes public trust in a fair and objective justice system. South Carolina’s criminal, civil and administrative courts hear thousands of cases each year that impact the lives of South Carolinians and their basic freedoms. For better or worse, the attitudes of African-Americans toward our state courts have a profound effect on the way they perceive their role in the justice system, including their willingness to report crimes. The bottom line is this: A positive public perception of the courts is critical to the maintenance and operation of the judicial system.

Another public policy consequence of the failure of South Carolina’s judiciary to reflect the state’s racial composition relates directly to the issue of justice. A judge is only human, and his or her predisposition will always to some degree be affected by the judge’s race, gender and ethnicity.

The importance of having a judiciary that reflects South Carolina’s population cannot be overstated. The governor and the chief justice are correct in drawing attention to this imbalance. The time has come for state legislators to remove their heads from the sand and level the scales of justice in South Carolina. As Cornel West has remarked, “who wants to be well-adjusted to injustice?”

Ms. Cobb-Hunter represents Orangeburg County in the S.C. House.