Black History Month can be a superficial month of plastering trite quotes, posting pictures of Rosa and Martin and throwing around trivia about Black achievers. However, Black History Month can be the entryway to meaningful conversations that help the legal community build cultural awareness, understanding and appreciation.
The Michigan Judicial Council has released its strategic agenda and operational plan. The first step was adopting an overarching mission statement: “Michigan’s One Court of Justice delivers justice for all by providing access, protecting rights, resolving disputes, and applying the law under the Constitution.”
U.S. law requires jury pools to represent a fair cross section of the community. Yet people of color are less likely to make it into the jury pool compared to white residents, even though most defendants are people of color. It's a decades-old issue that has defied solutions.