EDITORIAL The opinions in the below editorial do not necessarily reflect the views of the SCBA or the Editors of the Sacramento Lawyer magazine. The Editors welcome the submission of articles reflecting other views on this important topic in a future issue.
LAWYERS AND JUSTICE IN A TIME OF CHAOS By Aaron N. Taylor
Aaron N. Taylor is executive director of the AccessLex Center for Legal Education Excellence in Washington, DC. He can be contacted at ataylor@accesslex.org.
T
he chaos of 2020 has brought forth the glaring need for justice in this country. The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted all of us, changing our lives and how we interact with each other likely forever. But the burdens and the most tragic outcomes of the pandemic have not been suffered equally. Infection rates have been highest among vulnerable populations, including people living in poverty,1 people in nursing homes,2 and incarcerated people.3 Chances of infection and serious illness or death from COVID-19 can be tied directly to various inequalities that typify our country, most notably unequal access to healthcare. The foundational cause of all these trends is something else: racism. Black Americans have the high-
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est COVID-19 death rate, almost twice the rate of Americans overall.4 In California, Black people account for 6% of the population, but almost 10% of COVID deaths.5 No other racial or ethnic group experiences this level of disproportion. California is not alone. Cities and states across the country have reported similar, if not starker, trends. The trends are manifestations of the inequitable interplay between wealth status, health status, and race – which are reflections of systematic racism.6 The disparate death rates are unsettling, but should not be surprising. With the pandemic still raging, the issue of unjust police killings of Black men and women has returned to the forefront. The excruciating video of George Floyd’s life being suffocated away has sparked an ac-
SACRAMENTO LAWYER | Summer 2020 | www.sacbar.org
tivist movement unlike anything most of us have seen in our lifetimes. Protests of racism and racial violence against Black people have taken place in every state and the District of Columbia and have sparked similar protests around the world. The protest movement is being undergirded by various public policy demands. The dominant premise is the ending and remedying of unequal and inequitable treatment of Black people and other marginalized people by sanction of law, policy, or practice. But the overarching demand is justice. Justice is a weighty notion that should inhabit law, policy, and practice. It is the theoretical premise of our way of life. It is the lifeblood of the rule of law. Indeed, justice is essential to the continued functioning of this grand democratic
