An anti-racism group is planning to send volunteers into Cumberland County courtrooms to take notes and keep an eye out
for racial bias and other kinds of discrimination against defendants.
Members of Organizing Against Racism: Cumberland County will offer training and easy-to-fill-out forms for people who
can devote around an hour of their time on a weekday.
The court watcher program grew out of a discussion among OAR members, according to Mary Ann Tally, a retired Superior
Court judge and member of the group’s Justice Committee, who spoke at a meeting Jan. 11 at the Kiwanis Recreation
Center on Devers Street. People asked how they could help, Tally said.
“It will just be a wonderful opportunity for our people to get involved and to see what’s going on about justice — or not — in our county,” Tally said.
She described a real-life scenario she says she heard from retired Judge Greg Weeks, a fellow OAR member.
She said: “You’re a judge, you come in there on a Monday, and they got plea court, and there’s this young white boy charged with breaking-and-entering, he gets misdemeanor and then if he does OK for 18 months in a diversion program, he gets no conviction. Young Black boy comes in there, two cases later, exact same … situation and not only does he not get diversion he has to plead guilty to felonies, which prevent him from getting employment in many cases.”
Read full article at The Fayetteville Observer.