9. DISCRIMINATION IN THE COURTS
Judge Daniel P. Trude:
I think in the main the Negro gets as good a show as the white man when he gets before the judge. Whether the other forces before he gets up to that point treat him right or not, I cannot say.... A certain number of policemen have "got it in" for him and are going to "take a crack" at him because he is a colored man.
Judge Hugo Pam:
In a murder case lawyers will challenge a Negro; if there were a colored man in the box he would soon be put out.
Judge Charles M. Thomson:
Take for example a gun case, with twelve men in the box, and one a colored man, and suppose that the lawyer challenged the Negro. If you went to the lawyer and said, "Give me your reason," I don't think he would give you any reason.... If you had a case where the defendant was colored that juror would stay in the box so far as the defendant was concerned.
Judge Kickham Scanlan:
Of course there is another thing about the colored man in the criminal court that must be kept in mind. It is a peculiar thing about human nature, that no man wants to admit that he has prejudices. He will talk loosely on the outside that he doesn't like the Negro, or doesn't like the Jew, or doesn't like this person or that person, but you get him under oath in the jury box and in my twelve years on the bench I never knew a juror to admit that he was prejudiced against anybody. It goes without saying that in such a state of affairs you will probably get men on the juries that try colored men who have some prejudice against Negroes. I would say that when there is a colored defendant and white prosecuting witness there would be grave danger that the jury might unconsciously favor the white side of the case. Juries will convict a colored man with less hesitation than they will convict a white man on the same kind of evidence. For that reason, in the many cases in which the colored man is involved, I watch the evidence like a hawk. The verdict has got to pass me.