Civil rights, racial justice organizations fault courts in Antwan Stroud case | Social Points

Seven civil rights and racial justice organizations said Monday the New Hampshire judicial system must, like the police, begin prosecuting cases based on race, citing the “significant inequality” of criminal convictions resulting from the riot on South Willow Street June.

The four-sentence statement states that the 30-day prison sentence for Antwan Stroud, an 18-year-old black man, appears deeply problematic and “shows that New Hampshire has a very long way to go to eradicate the systemic racism that is prevalent in our country has a criminal justice system. “

The statement focuses on the criminal sentences imposed for the riot on South Willow Street following the murder of George Floyd, a black man, in Minneapolis this spring.

Of the three people convicted of riot-related crimes, only Stroud received prison sentences, the union leader reported last month.

Two others – suburban whites – received suspended sentences.

The seven organizations are the ACLU-New Hampshire, the American Friends Service Committee, the Black Lives Matter Manchester, the Black Lives Matter Nashua, the NAACP Manchester, the Rights and Democracy NH, and the Granite State Organizing Project.

Recently, two attorneys with ties to the Manchester NAACP signed up as Stroud’s new attorneys and asked a judge to allow Stroud to resign from his January plea deal. His attorneys accuse Stroud’s original attorney of ineffective legal counsel and prosecutors for failing to disclose the terms of other South Willow Street cases.

Late last week, a Hillsborough District Attorney John Coughlin filed papers urging Supreme Court Justice Will Delker not to reopen the case.

Assistant District Attorney Thomas Craig said Stroud was the only one of the three to commit a crime against a person. He asked a crowd of around 10 teenagers to pull a Manchester police officer out of a car. And Stroud filmed the ordeal and posted it on social media to encourage others, the prosecutor said.

“There was no apparent injustice here. Every defendant was sentenced for their behavior and nothing more,” wrote Craig. The breed is not mentioned in the 21-page submission. Stroud’s lawyers often mentioned racial and racial differences in their records.

Delker has a hearing scheduled for April 9th ​​to reopen the case.

The organizations’ statement stated that judges and the court system must undergo implicit bias training. Also, the court system should collect and compile data based on race, the seven said.

It should be noted that Governor Chris Sununu’s Police Accountability Commission asked law enforcement agencies to undergo bias training and include racing in their data collection.

“Mr Stroud’s case makes it clear that New Hampshire needs to begin tracking and analyzing racial data on decisions in the judicial system to review any differences in judicial conviction,” the statement said. “To take these important steps toward true justice for all, we need to review our current systems to ensure we are addressing implicit biases and racial profiles wherever they exist in New Hampshire.”

Earlier this month, a fourth person charged with a crime on South Willow Street was sentenced to two to four years in prison. The verdict against 24-year-old Dylan Smith of Deerfield also includes parole violations and criminal threats from Merrimack County.