February 26, 2013
Sonia Sotomayor Condemns Prosecutor’s Racially Charged Question
Supreme Court judge Sonia Sotomayor condemned a federal prosecutor’s racially charged question when he cited race as a means to convict a defendant of a drug deal.
Appointed by President Barack Obama in 2009, Sotomayor took an extra step and wrote a statement to accompany the nine-member Supreme Court announcement rejecting the criminal case.
The unidentified prosecutor asked “You’ve got African-Americans, you’ve got Hispanics, you’ve got a bag full of money. Does that tell you – a light bulb doesn’t go off in your head and say, this is a drug deal?” while questioning an African American.
Sotomayor was disturbed by the prosecutor’s statement and wrote that the prosecutor had “tapped a deep and sorry vein of racial prejudice that has run through the history of criminal justice in our nation.”
“I hope never to see a case like this again,” the justice wrote.
Read more at Huffingtonpost.com