Professor John Pfaff is quoted in an Elle article profiling CNN political analyst and former FBI agent Asha Rangappa.
At the same time, though, marginalized communities have catalyzed a public reckoning over institutional failures like police brutality, mass incarceration, and voter suppression. When I ask how someone who understands racial disparities in sentencing can put their faith in the impartial machinery of justice, Rangappa protests that I’m bringing up an issue related to bad policy or individual judges, not the justice system itself. During the Trump presidency, she says, the justice system is “the only branch that’s doing its job.”
This view is common among commentators with a law enforcement background, but critics from the defense side see a justice system shot through with policies and procedures that disadvantage marginalized groups, such as cash bail and racial profiling. The neutral and fair justice system, Fordham law professor John Pfaff recently wrote, is “a laudable system, well worth defending. But it is also one that does not actually exist.”
