Crook County

Chapter 4 focuses on the role of prosecutors in perpetuating colorblind racism. Gonzalez Van Cleve begins by describing three photographs in her supervising prosecutor’s office: a Black mother reenacting the murder of her newborn, a Black man in an electric blue suit arguing his innocence in a murder, and a closeup of a dead Black man’s hand. Gonzalez Van Cleve uses these pictures as a point of departure to discuss conflicting ideas of justice in Cook County. On the one hand, the prosecutor emphasizes the human context of the photos, stressing the cruelty of the system for not taking the personal circumstances of the woman who killed her child into account. On the other hand, the prosecutor presents the dead Black man as deserving of the vigilantism that killed him.

Gonzalez Van Cleve argues that racialized justice is not just the product of a few bad actors, but also of an entrenched culture. Prosecutors at the Cook County Courts toggle between knowing what is right and practicing law in biased ways. Although prosecutors acknowledge bias in the court, they don’t see themselves as part of the problem, instead pointing to other courtroom professionals, the police, and lawmakers.