According to a study published on line by The Judicial Counsel of California (2005), public hearings and opinion surveys revealed that members of minority communities did not believe that the judiciary and court staff reflected California's increasing diversity. An overall impression was that although the general public gives the California judiciary a good report card, many minority-group members do not believe that they will receive equal justice in the California courts.
Another finding was a persistent perception among minorities that the justice system gives scant attention or resources to investigating crimes against minorities and those defendants who are minorities receive harsh treatment compared to White defendants in similar circumstances. National statistics help to explain this persistent concern. In the United States, almost one in three African American males, 30.2 percent, are under the control of the criminal justice system. In California the rate is 33.2 percent. The comparable rate for Latinos and Whites nationally is 12.3 percent and 6.7 percent, respectively. In California the rate for Latinos is 9.4 percent and 5.4 percent for Whites.
The Judicial Council reports indicates that nationwide statistics support the claim that despite the growing numbers of minority law students graduating from top-ranked law schools, the country's largest private law firms are recruiting minimal numbers of minority attorneys and retaining even fewer minority attorneys at the senior associate and partner levels. Minorities account for 4.3 percent of the partners in large San Francisco firms and 5.7 percent of large Los Angeles firms. The percentages are only slightly higher in the public sector. Of the district attorney offices that responded to a survey, nearly 85 percent of their deputy district attorneys were White, 4.8 percent are African American, 6.4 percent are Latino, 3.8 percent are Asian American, and less than 1 per...