ANN ARBOR, MI – Black defendants facing felony charges in Washtenaw County are more likely to see additional charges and harsher prison sentences than white defendants, according to a study from a citizen-lead social justice group.
After several months of examining criminal case data from more than 1,000 Washtenaw County Circuit Court felony cases, Citizens for Racial Equity in Washtenaw, or CREW, released its findings, Aug. 27, in a 50-page report that indicates Black defendants receive more charges, more convictions and harsher sentences than whites.
The report found that from 2013-19, Black defendants were three to 29 times more likely than whites to be charged with:
- Assault
- Resisting or Obstructing an Officer
- Controlled Substance-Delivery
- Controlled Substance-Possession
- Weapons-Carrying Concealed
- Weapons-Felony Firearm
- Weapons-Possession by Felon
- Armed Robbery
- Assault with Intent to Commit Murder
- Assault with Intent to Do Great Bodily Harm Less than Murder
- Homicide
The report also notes that after being charged, Black defendants are more likely to be convicted and receive longer prison sentences than white defendants, who often are sentenced to probation.
“(The report) has raised questions in information about sentencing and charging disparities and there’s many specific examples that show wide (racial) disparities,” CREW Co-Chairwoman Linda Rexer said. “So, we have called for recommendations, we have a number of them, and also have listed many questions that the study has caused us to ask for further information.”
Recommendations include oversight by the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners, creating a race equity commission, having a neutral third party evaluate prosecutor and judge case records regarding charging and sentencing decisions, increasing transparency on how plea deals are offered, creating an online dashboard with race demographic in the court and performing regular equity audits.
The report acknowledges its scope is limited due to a lack of access to publicly available information online, as motions and court files associated with each case can only be accessed from the courthouse in downtown Ann Arbor.
The report notes that the lack of information is itself is one of the problems that needs to be addressed, as both the court and the prosecutor’s office were unable to provide any collected racial demographics, CREW said.
The Washtenaw County Prosecutor’s Office stated it was aware of the report and its findings but has yet to review its contents and comment on its recommendations.
“I haven’t had a chance to go over the report yet, and it does raise some interesting questions that need to be looked at, but I’m confident in saying we don’t charge based on race,” Washtenaw County Chief Prosecuting Attorney Steven Hiller said. “We take each case as it is brought to us by police. Some counties have investigators assigned specifically to their prosecutor’s office, we do not. It’s not in our budget.”
Despite the lack of information in only a few months of court record analysis leaving many unanswered questions, the group decided to release its initial findings in hopes of bringing immediate attention to the volume of presumed racial disparities.
“There were such troubling patterns of disparities in the prosecutor’s office and with one judge that we couldn’t push it off for further inquiry,” CREW Co-Chairwoman Mary Ann Sarosi Said. “It really was necessary to call for some immediate steps to be taken and that’s why we suggest or urge the court and Chief Judge (Carol) Kuhnke and the prosecutor to undertake a third-party review.”
Kuhnke and presumed Washtenaw County Prosecutor elect Eli Savit, who won the August primary election and is running for the office unopposed in November, issued a joint statement showing appreciation for CREWs efforts in bringing the situation to light.
“Across the country, prosecutorial practices have been responsible for racial disparities in our system— from charging decisions, to sentencing recommendations, to plea-bargaining conduct,” Savit said. “For that reason, one of my campaign promises was to partner with a third-party evaluator to identify—and eliminate—the practices in our prosecutor’s office that give rise to those disparities.”
Each of the court’s four trial judges are mentioned having racial disparities in the report, but one judge appeared to have more disparities than the others, according to the report.
The report stated it found 23 instances where Judge Archie Brown’s decisions exhibited racial disparity or was an outlier in terms of handing down harsher sentences than his fellow judges. Details on these instances were not made available by CREW.
Brown stated he has yet to review the CREW report but welcomes a review of his cases by a third party.
“I understand there are racial inequities and there are systemic problems in the system, but until a full review is completed, I don’t know how else to proceed,” Brown said. “In regard to sentencing, I rely of sentencing guidelines which are prepared in a report by the probation department which reviews the facts of the case and interviews the defendant.”
In Michigan, after a defendant enters a plea or is found guilty of a crime, the probation department prepares a pre-sentence report which details the facts of the case and its effect on the victims and the public, It then interviews the defendant to assign a number score that gives judges a baseline for what a reasonable and just sentence would be.
On the date of sentencing, the prosecutor and the defendant’s attorney have an opportunity to argue for changes in the scoring, raising or lowering the total number of points, which could lead to a change in the defendant’s recommended sentence.
Pre-sentence reports are not available to the public.
“I’m grateful to CREW for beginning this conversation,” Kuhnke said. “I’m glad that the report acknowledges that the data tells only a part of the story. The story it does tell, however, is one we know well: implicit bias is real. We must do all we can to ensure that justice is blind, and the CREW report shows us the path.”
The report can be viewed by visiting the group’s website at citizensforracialequitywashtenaw.org
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