Kentucky residents may wonder if unconscious bias in the courtroom could affect judges. This was a question that arose when a protester reacting to a 'straight pride" parade led to a female defense lawyer being arrested for talking in court.
The impact of unconscious bias in the courtroom
Not everyone who fails a breath test has been drinking
Police departments in Kentucky and around the country use breath-testing equipment to determine whether or not drivers are operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol. These devices use breath samples to determine an individual's blood alcohol concentration, but they do not always paint a complete picture. There are a number of medical conditions that can influence a person's BAC, and there is one that can lead to significantly elevated blood alcohol levels even when not a drop of alcohol has been consumed.
An increasing number of Americans are getting busted
Kentucky residents may be interested in learning about the long-term effects that the increased arrest rate in the United States has on people's lives. It's estimated that a person who gets arrested at least once by the time they are 26 years old is going to make around $5,000 less per year than their counterpart who has never been arrested. If a person has been arrested multiple times by the age of 26, they will make around $8,000 less than someone who was not arrested by that age. This means that over the course of their life, a person who gets arrested by can lose between $180,000 and $275,000.
Questioning jailhouse informants
When individuals living in Kentucky deal with the criminal justice system, they may mistakenly expect that their right to due process will protect them from being convicted of a crime. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Poor police work, corrupt legal systems and badly handled evidence can result in an unjust conviction of an innocent person. One area of particular concern in recent years has been the use of so-called jailhouse informants, individuals who meet a suspect in jail or prison and then claim that the suspect confessed to a crime.
How misdemeanor cases influence the justice system in Kentucky
According to one researcher, there are 13 million misdemeanor cases each year that pass through U.S. courts. With so many cases to deal with, judges and prosecutors put pressure on public defenders to resolve them as soon as possible. In many cases, the defendants are black or poor. Statistics show that white people are 75 percent more likely to have charges that could result in jail time dismissed or reduced.
Kentucky man facing charges after police pursuit
Officers say that the man refused to exit his vehicle when ordered to do so and instead left the area at a high rate of speed. The man was apprehended a short time later after his abandoned vehicle had been found behind a nearby shopping mall according to police. A search of the man and his vehicle is said to have uncovered two handguns, several suboxone pills, marijuana and drug paraphernalia. Officers say that the man admitted that the guns and drugs were his.
