The nation's top federal prosecutors have become less diverse under President Donald Trump than under his three predecessors, leaving white men overwhelmingly in charge at a time of national demonstrations over racial inequality and the fairness of the criminal justice system.
The Associated Press analysed government data from nearly three decades and found that a persistent lack of diversity in the ranks of US attorneys has reached a nadir in the Trump administration.
Eighty-five percent of his Senate-confirmed US attorneys are white men, according to AP's analysis, compared with 58 per cent in Democratic President Barack Obama's eight years, 73 per cent during Republican George W. Bush's two terms and at most 63 per cent under Democrat Bill Clinton.
White men lead 79 of the 93 US attorney's offices in a country where they make up less than a third of the population. Nine current US attorneys are women. Two are Black, and two Hispanic.
Federal prosecutors can have a profound effect on the criminal justice system and leadership holds an immense sway. Without a diverse group considering cases, bias can seep unnoticed into charging decisions and sentencing recommendations, undermine federal leadership with state and local law enforcement and chip away at the perceived legitimacy of the justice system.
The enduring imbalance leaves US attorneys looking less like the people they serve, and is in stark contrast to the population of federal prisons, where a disproportionate share of those incarcerated are Black.
“When you take it in the aggregate, it becomes very evident that the department, as a whole, is simply not valuing diversity at its highest ranks of leadership and not making the most well-informed decisions when those voices are absent from the decision-making process,” said Kenneth Polite Jr., who served as US attorney in New Orleans during Obama's second term.
“It would be silly for anyone to suggest the department couldn't do better.” The gap is especially relevant in an era when state and local law enforcement are repeatedly being taken to task over decisions not to prosecute police in the killings of Black people. US prosecutors can serve as a backstop in those scenarios by bringing federal charges.
The Trump administration's inability to hire top prosecutors who reflect the nation has also deepened mistrust in communities frustrated by the Justice Department's shift away from investigating police practices and Attorney General William Barr's dismissal of the idea of systemic racism in law enforcement.
White House spokesman Judd Deere did not answer questions about the diversity of US attorneys under Trump's watch, but said in a statement that the administration has “worked closely with US Senators to identify the best candidates to serve as the chief law enforcement officer in their districts back home, and we are very proud of the work that they are doing to keep all Americans safe."
Former prosecutors say that even among qualified and well-meaning professionals, bias can skew prosecutorial decisions where there isn't a varied group considering cases. It's something Danny Williams Sr. saw a year after he became a US attorney in Oklahoma in 2012.
Tulsa police had arrested two groups, one white and the other Black, in separate armed robberies, and the cases ended up before federal prosecutors. The facts were similar, so Williams said he was surprised that the proposed charges that reached his desk were different: The Black defendants were facing more potential prison time.
Williams, who is Black, said he asked the assistant US attorney who'd handled the cases what factual difference accounted for the disparity. The career prosecutor, who is white, responded that the white defendants were college students, Williams said.
“I don't want this story to come off as I thought the guy was racist. I just think that he didn't grasp, in the charging decision, the way he treated these two different groups differently,” Williams said. “It's just an example of, this is why you need diversity.” The same charges were ultimately brought in both cases, according to Williams.
To be sure, the way bias plays out is complex and there is not a direct relationship between a prosecutor's race or sex and the decisions he or she makes. Though the US attorney may be the public face of a prosecuting office, he or she is hardly the sole decision-maker, serving instead at the top of a career bureaucracy that relies on the judgment and informed recommendations of lower-level officials who often do the complicated investigative work.
After a white South Carolina police officer gunned down Walter Scott, who was Black, in 2015, the Justice Department secured a 20-year prison sentence for the officer.
Jared Fishman, the white former prosecutor who handled the case, “showed so much compassion and he took on my brother's case as if it was his own family,” said Anthony Scott, Walter's older brother. But other families have had their hopes dashed.
After New York prosecutors didn't bring criminal charges in the death of Eric Garner, the Obama administration launched a federal investigation that was left incomplete and handed off two years later to the Trump administration before Garner's family got word no charges would be filed. Garner died in 2014 after a police officer's chokehold.
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