All-white middle class juries rarely end well…

In less than 24 hours, Raquel Nelson will receive her sentence for the following convictions relating to her 4 year old son’s death: reckless conduct, improperly crossing a roadway and second-degree homicide by vehicle.

A summarized version of the story goes something like this: Nelson, a mother of three children, had gotten off at a bus stop across the street from her home in Georgia. “Nelson’s apartment complex sits across the street from the bus stop, but the nearest crosswalk is three-tenths of a mile away.” She crossed the first lanes of the street and waited in the median for traffic to subside so she could cross. When her 4 year old son saw others crossing the road, he let go of her hand and ran into the road. She followed after him along with her other two daughters.

In comes Jerry Guy who has had a) two prior convictions of hit and runs. B) is mostly blind in one eye. And c) admitted to having drank alcohol and taken painkillers before getting behind the wheel of his car.

Guy’s car collides with Nelson’s 4 year old son and (may he RIP) he died. Guy got off with 6 months in jail for his hit-and-run while the mother of the deceased child could face up to 3 years in prison for jaywalking.

First and foremost, why in God’s name did the state of Georgia decide to prosecute a woman grieving over her son’s death for jaywalking and homicide merely weeks after the shock?

In interviews, one of the first questions she is asked is “why did you jaywalk?” People who disagree with the prosecution and the conviction are always quick to start the sentence off with “yeah she was at fault, but still…”

At fault for what?! For the death of her son? The only person, as far as I see it, who was responsible for the death of her son was Guy. Yet the blame and the heavy jail sentence is being put on the shoulders of Nelson. Her family just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Yeah jaywalking is a crime. But imagine yourself in her shoes! You have been out and about with three little children. You missed your bus and pulled up across the street from your apartment when it’s dark outside. You are carrying groceries and clutching your children’s hands. Your apartment is right across the street but the nearest crosswalk is three-tenths of a mile away. For all the judgments that are being hurled at her, not one of the people sitting on their self-righteous horses would have walked the 3/10 of a mile just so they could cross the street “lawfully” and then walk the 3/10 of a mile back to their house!

The qualifier we should be adding in front of our statements should be “he should not have been driving half blind, drunk, and on painkillers!” As a matter of fact, the better qualifer should be “After being convicted of two hit and runs, he should not have been behind the wheel of a damn car!”

 But no. Guy gets off with six months while Nelson faces homocide convictions. Really now? Really?!

Don’t we think she has enough to deal with already that we need to add possibly losing three years with the two children she has left? Becoming a parent is hard and scary—you always wonder if you’ll do right by your kids. You always try to protect them from harm and you’re always afraid of the huge responsibility of their lives that are on your shoulder. Don’t you think that if she had known the consequences of the night, she would have walked to the moon and back rather than crossing the street at that second? Where do we got off prosecuting her of homofreakingcide?

And no, her case does not point out the harmfulness of jaywalking! What it points out is the harmfulness of having drivers like Guy on the road! Children run across streets. Children let go of hands. That’s what they do! She has her own internal guilt to live with for the rest of her life so where do we get off, as a public who has not said two kind words to her, judging and condoning her or even daring to call her a bad parent for the decision she made that every last one of us would have made had we been in her position!

Now comes the most important fact in this case that I have yet to mention: Raquel Nelson is Black and she was convicted by an all-white jury who had admitted to never having taken/relied on public transportation. In an interview on the Today show, Nelson also stated that she doubted any of the members of the jury were single mothers or understood where she was coming from.

When you have a jury who admits to never having to rely on public transportation of walking in order to get from one place to another, you know they don’t understand squat about Nelson’s situation. To someone who isn’t a single mother and who has access to a car, it makes no sense why someone to “risk the life of their child” in order to do something so silly and incriminating as jaywalk. But for those of us who do rely on public transportation and who do use walking as the sole means of getting from one place to another, her choice to jaywalk was legitimately the only sane choice in the scenario.

Beyond priviledgeism:

In a country where the jury lets Casey Anthony walk away when every. half brained dimwit with access to Wikipedia could tell that she was G-U-I-L-T-Y, but convicts a mother whose family happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time with homocide, it is about racism.

I wish I could formulate this thought more substantially because what I have to say just sounds whiny but is nevertheless 100% true: if Nelson had been a White woman, she would probably not be facing charges of homocide.

 But even more importantly, when someone says that the jury was “all-white” and if the defendant happens to be non-white, you just know shit isn’t going to end well. It’s not about a race being inherently more racist or anything of such. But what it is about is this idea that has been ingrained in us so deeply that it almost is inherent—and the idea is that rule/law following is good but people of color are not very good at following the law, are uneducated, and generally can’t make good decisions for themselves.

In a country where impartial jurors are supposed to decide the fates of the accused, it is crucial to note that the jurors are never impartial. Every juror comes in with certain pre-conceived notions about the parties involved even when they know nothing about the case. When they a woman, they channel certain stereotypes; when they see someone of a particular religion, sexual orientation, class, etc., they channel certain stereotypes.

And with America’s long and complicated history with racism, no juror is color-blind. Every person sitting in the jury has some pre-conceived stereotypes about the accused, which they have come to know as facts. These “facts” lead us to see things in a different light.

A 30 year old mother goes on a shopping trip with her 9, 4, and 3 year olds because the next day is her birthday. Through a series of events, her son ends up in the middle of street just when a twice-convicted hit and run driver who is blind in one eye, has been drinking alcohol, and is on painkillers is driving through. But she is the one who is placed on a pedestal for the world to judge.

As if losing a child isn’t bad enough. As if dealing with survival guilt/parental guilt isn’t bad enough.  She now finds out how much time she will be spending in jail, away from her family and away from her two little children.

We’re just such a screwed up, judgmental bunch of people.