(ThyBlackMan.com) Karmelo Anthony should have walked away. If he had, he would not have killed. He would not have been arrested and charged with first degree murder. He would not have been defended by, prosecuted by, judged by, and convicted by non-Blacks. He would certainly not be facing thirty-five years behind bars. It would have been no insult or affront to his “manhood” if he had had the discipline, smarts, and courage not to respond to a stupid, provocative act by the perpetrator.
That might be asking too much of a teen in a world where violence is glorified by the minute. And manhood is dumbly and wrongly defined as acting out the tough guy, take no crap from anyone, stance. But as we see that momentary violent acting didn’t serve Anthony well.
His conviction for murder was again brutal proof of one immutable fact. Young Blacks who commit the same crimes as young whites will never get the same treatment within the criminal justice system as they do.
This by no means is a defense of Anthony’s act violent response. He took a life. He must pay for that. However, the price he paid should not be higher than that paid if circumstances were reversed and a young white killed a young Black.
Yet countless studies and surveys on the gaping racial disparities have amply proven that it is.
The Stanford University Three Strikes Project in 2025 found that Blacks get a much harsher sentence than whites for the same crime.
This is hardly the revelation of the ages for many criminal justice reform advocates. They have long contended, backed up by a wealth of facts, figures, studies, and reports, that race does matter when it comes to criminal sentencing.
District attorneys have enormous power in determining who to prosecute, even whether to prosecute, and what sentences to ask for when prosecuting. Judges lean heavily on the sentencing recommendation of prosecutors when rendering a decision on a sentence for a defendant following conviction.
Repeated studies within and without California provide overwhelming evidence that in some California courts there are glaring sentencing disparities. In almost all cases, the defendant getting the book thrown at them is Black whereas whites are far more likely to walk.
The Stanford Project cited numerous cases of glaring discrepancies in sentencing for a Black defendant versus that slapped on a white defendant for the same crime. It specifically singled out sentencing in Los Angeles and San Diego County courts among the worst offenders in the racial sentencing double standard. It zeroed in on the sentencing for robberies.
In Los Angeles County, Blacks convicted of robbery received prison sentences that were more than 30% longer than whites for the same crime. In San Diego County, Blacks who were convicted of low-level robberies received sentences that were longer than whites. Though it particularly singled out San Diego and L.A. counties for criticism, the pattern of apparent discriminatory sentencing held throughout California. That same pattern could be found in virtually every region of the country.
The Stanford Project, in tandem with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, went on the offensive. It filed legal action to reverse 18 prison sentences of Blacks on the grounds of sentencing discrimination. The petition was filed in accord with the 2021 state law, the Racial Justice Act, which prohibits discriminatory sentencing. The law aims at reducing racial disparities in the criminal justice system.
“The sad truth is that in California, like so many other states in our country, people of color are serving significantly longer sentences than white people, and that’s for the same offenses with no legitimate justification for those disparities,” noted NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorney John Fowler said.
The Stanford project took particular care in choosing the 18 cases for review. The Black offenders had been sentenced to life in prison for low-level crimes in which no one was hurt or even touched. They compared those cases to comparable cases where white offenders received much less harsh sentences.
One of the culprits in perpetuating racial sentencing disparity is the judges. Some judges may well bring their latent or not so latent racial biases into courtrooms. In Anthony’s case, the judge could have posed other alternatives to the jury to find him guilty of such crimes as criminal negligence. These lesser charges would not have carried the stiff sentence mandated by a first-degree murder conviction. The charge Anthony was convicted of.
Yes, Anthony should have walked away from the provocation. His impulsive act to strike back cost him dearly. Unfortunately, many other Blacks such as him have found out the hard way that racial equity within the criminal justice system is an alien concept for Black men when it comes to crime and punishment.
Written By Earl Ofari Hutchinson
One can find more info about Mr. Hutchinson over at the following site; TheHutchinson Report.
Also feel free to connect with him through twitter; http://twitter.com/earlhutchins
He is also an associate editor of New America Media. His forthcoming book is From King to Obama: Witness to a Turbulent History (Middle Passage Press).
