233 :

Nathaniel decided to wait until he was done explaining if someone had another question and lift an eyebrow when he saw Na-Yung lifting her hand in the air. He didn't know what she wanted to ask and even knowing that she could be playful, he still chose to take her seriously and nodded in her direction.

"Why did you choose to take this particular case? Why choose a case that no one ever heard about instead of a well known trial?" She asked.

Nathaniel had to hide a smile at his friend's antics, he knew that she was trying to help him by making it harder for their teacher to ridicule his work. Better than that, her question while sounding pretty meek was in fact a way to influence their fellow students in order to put them to his side in the event of their professor wanting to go through with his actions. Recognizing what she wanted to do, Nathaniel still opted to be honest in his answer.

"The answer is pretty simple to be honest, it's because you don't need to take a high profile trial to learn and sometimes it's in the more simple things that you learn the most. This case was a perfect representation of how much public opinion and bias is sometimes more important than the law and evidence in a trial. All jurors already knew the story by how it was told in the press and already have an opinion. It's important to recognize that the media don't care about the truth, they have a strong incentive to make it as sensationalist as possible so that people look at their channel and then up their ads revenue. The prosecutor's concern was of political nature and this is why it's of critical importance to know people's intent in order to understand how they work. If I were to ask everyone in this room why they wanted to become a lawyer, I'm sure I would have more than a hundred different answers to that question but each one would make it better for me to know you."

Nathaniel was surprised to hear and see people writing in their book and typing on their laptop. His professor seemed to have heard it too because he looked at Nathaniel angrily.

"So that's your excuse? It seems pretty weak to me. No, I believe you took this case because it was easier and simpler to research it and you didn't want to do the work."

That was an outrageous statement and an extremely bad faithed one to boot. Saying that a pretty isolated case was more easy to research than an high profile one was an insult to anyone who had intelligence for obvious reasons. Even the students who disliked him the most in the room could see that Nathaniel had put a lot of work in his essay and more than a few people were frowning at their professor back.

"You are wrong, Professor." Nathaniel said more calmly than what he was actually feeling.

"Thankfully, your opinions have no worth inside this room, only mine do. Now, put your essay on my desk and I will grade it according to its quality."

"I see." Nathaniel answered, putting his essay on the desk. "Are you sure you want to go there, professor?" He asked with steel in his voice.

"Oh yes, I'll do what I want, this is my classroom so if you are done…" He starts to say before Nathaniel interrupts him.

"I'm not."

"Then keep going." He said, sitting back on his chair, a devious smile on his lips.

Nathaniel knew why his professor wanted him to continue, it was for him to humiliate him even more when he would be done. It would have been a good plan against anyone but him and Nathaniel was going to prove that now. Returning the smile to his teacher, Nathaniel looked to the crowd.

"Can someone tell me what is in the Sixth amendments of the Constitution?" He asked.

Surprised by the questions and the change of subject, a few people started to raise their hands followed by many more when they saw that their professor was not going to step in. Seeing the number of the people who have the answers, Nathaniel wasn't surprised considering it was an easy question. His teacher hearing the question didn't know what Nathaniel had in mind but sneered at him nonetheless.

"It's the right for every American to be judged by a jury of their peers."

"Correct. What are the two ways for prosecutors and lawyers to exclude potential jurors?"

"Challenge for cause and peremptory challenge."

"Correct again." Nathaniel answers, nodding. "Challenge for cause is when a juror is struck because he or she is unfit to serve or as a connection with the trial and can't be impartial. Peremptory challenge on the other hand where lawyers can strike ten juror each with any explanations or no explanations at all. Can someone in the room tell me what the Supreme Court ruling of 1986, Batson vs Kentucky did?"

This time however only six students raise their hands to answer this question, Nathaniel pointing at one of them.

"Batson vs Kentucky ruling stated that it was now illegal to exclude people in Peremptory challenge because of their race."

"Very good. It was a good thing but like you can easily guess, it opened some huge loopholes for people to use. This is why you need to meet this man." Nathaniel said, launching a video from his laptop.

"... In selecting black, again, you don't want the real educated one. This goes across the board from all races, you don't want smart people. Again, if you sitting down and you want the blacks, pick dumb blacks. In my experience black women, especially young black women are very bad. There is an antagonism there maybe because they are down in two respects, they have two minorities, they're women and they're blacks so they are down in two areas and they somehow want to take it on somebody and you don't want it to be you."

Nathaniel cut the video, having heard enough. Looking at the students in front of him, many of them were shaking their head while others were glaring at the screen, an opinion that he was sharing wholeheartedly.

"This man was Jack McMahon, former District Attorney in Pennsylvania and on this video he was instructing a room full of prosecutors on what people they should avoid in a jury. By the way, this training video was made early 1990, which for some of you that are pretty bad at math, four years AFTER the judgements was made by the Supreme Court. I know that it's pretty outraging to see a government official instructing other government officials on how to break the law without getting caught. Just a side note here for you, in the US more women are born than men so what he was saying about women being a minority is bullshit. That was maybe one of the reasons that bigot was so adamant about striking smart people."

"What he was saying in this training video was one of the biggest loopholes on the Supreme Court ruling was that you couldn't strike jurors because of race but you still could invoke another reason to strike them and do it anyway. The bigger question is why? Why is it so important to strike black jurors? Just last year, a study was conducted in Florida and what was found was that an all white jury was almost twenty percent more likely to convict a black defendant compared to a jury racially diverse. It is one of those things that we all suspected but it's still depressing to hear. Professor, do you know that man?" Nathaniel asked offhandedly, focusing everyone's attention on him.

"Hum, what!? You mean the man in that video? No, I never heard of him." He answers, seeming uncomfortable.

"Alright, I believe you were a Prosecutor in Georgia for eighteen years before you became a teacher here, is that correct?" Nathaniel asked.

"Pretty much yes. Well, if that is all, I believe it's time for you to…" He started to say before being interrupted.

"Not so fast Professor, I'm not done yet." Nathaniel answers, looking at him with a smile before focusing back on the students. "I look into it and in your career you conduct 2875 felony cases, 1654 involved a black defendants. I know that in this room we have some athletes that love statistics so let me throw some of it at you. Of those 1654 cases, our professor here struck 94% of potential black jurors. To give you a context, the odds of that happening by chance is one in a quadrillion. But still, let's give him the benefit of the doubt and let's go back to the man we saw earlier." Nathaniel said, launching another piece of the video.

"... Let's say that you struck three blacks to start with, the first three people, the defense attorney made an objection saying that you are strucking blacks, you may not be able to look back and make something up on why you did it. Write it down, all in there. Sometimes on that line, you want to ask more questions to those people so it gives you more ammunition to make articulate reasons on why you are striking them and not for race."

"Yes, you heard right, he said 'those' people which is pretty suspicious but let's go back to Professor Miles shall we? I looked into it and in those 1654 cases, where on average he was asking between one and three questions to potential white jurors, he was asking between ten and fifteen questions to black jurors. I need to make you aware that in September, 1989 Prosecutor Miles had five of his strike invalidated by the judge presiding his case because he was suspected of racial profiling. It's almost as if in the year that follows you meet someone who instructs you on how to get away with it. There is also this."

Nathaniel then shows an old Facebook post showing a photo of their professor with Jack McMahon. The text behind it was even more damaging saying 'Huge honor to meet such a genius and visionary.' The whole class was dead silent, looking at the picture and their teacher with a judgmental glare.

"To be fair, you deleted this from your Facebook account six month before taking the job but you should know that once on the internet, it's forever on it. You are either a racist or you care so much about your conviction rate that you were willing to jail innocent black american men and at that point, there is no difference. You are a disgrace as a man, a prosecutor and a teacher." Nathaniel finished, not hiding his contempt at this point.

It seems it was for his professor because he jumped to his feet, his eyes crazed and his face red. He walked in the direction of Nathaniel, took his essay and shred it in front of the whole class before throwing it in the trash bin.

"Get the hell out of my face, Lyndon! You are banned from this class!" He yelled at him.

Nathaniel watches him calmly before putting his stuff back into his bag.

"It's not going to matter, you are not going to be a teacher in this university much longer." Nathaniel said before walking away from the desk, passing in the middle of the other students before exiting the room.