Equal Justice Initiative has released a new report, Unreliable Verdicts: Racial Bias and Wrongful Convictions. The report documents how excluding Black people and other people of color from juries can increase the chance of a wrongful conviction, especially in death penalty cases.

The report cites an incident from a 2017 trial in Renton, WA, showing that our region is not immune from this type of bias. Section 5, entitled Profiles in Exoneration is a particularly powerful section filled with stories of people who were wrongfully convicted by non-diverse juries.

Reports like these help us to better understand where bias and discrimination persist in our systems of justice so that we can advocate for changes that will make the system more fair for everyone.