Race and the case of Manny Ellis

A Detroit mother killed her kids by locking them in a freezer. A New York man kept women chained in his basement for years. Both of these horrible crimes actually happened and are examples of people being treated as “less than human” and have nothing to do with race.

Yet the Pierce County Superior Court judge presiding over the trial of three Tacoma police officers accused of killing Manuel Ellis interprets the phrase “less than human” as referring to race.

Judge Bryan Chushcoff chastised special prosecutor Patty Eakes when, in her closing arguments, she told jurors the officers treated Ellis as “less than human.”

To infer race from the term “less than human’’ is not only a leap, but a disturbing leap, especially for someone who Pierce County voters entrust as a shepherd of justice.

It’s just one example of how a naive attempt to keep race out of a case that centered on race has backfired. 

Tacoma Officers Matthew Collins and Christopher Burbank are charged with second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter and officer Timothy Rankine is charged with first-degree manslaughter in Ellis’ death in March 2020.

But after 10 weeks of testimony the fate of three officers now rests with a Pierce County jury made up of two Black people, one Asian American and nine white people. 

In many ways, the case parallels the killing of George Floyd. Like Floyd, Ellis was Black. And like some of the Minneapolis police officers charged in Floyd’s death, two of the Tacoma officers are white and one is Asian American.

Both killings occurred in 2020, the year the world gained a new awareness of how race intersects with policing, as protests erupted around the country.

Race cannot be removed from criminal proceedings because it’s baked in the judicial system, starting with who gets prosecuted and who gets plea deals to who gets picked or passed over to serve on a jury.

In addition to the “less than human” objection, another attorney for the defense, Brett Purtzer, who is white, crossed the lines of courtroom decorum when he twice called Ellis family attorney James Bible, who is Black, a “boy,” as in “keep moving, boy,” as Bible tried to calm tensions that erupted between the Ellis family and one of the defendants’ family members.

Historically, “boy”’ is how Black men, regardless of their age, education or social status, were addressed by white people of all ages. It was used to degrade and humiliate. Though Purtzer apologized, it is appalling that such a pejorative would be part of a Washington Bar Association member’s lexicon in 2023.

It’s foolish to think that in a case involving white officers and a Black man race could be brushed aside. Racial biases are a part of human nature and can’t be stifled at the order of a judge.

As many legal scholars have said, justice is not blind, despite the hallowed image of Lady Justice balancing a scale while blindfolded.

Now in Pierce County, justice is in the hands of 12 county residents who, like the attorneys, family members, clerks and judges, might fully intend to check their biases at the courthouse door and pick up blindfolds.

But the reality is that is hard to do. Instead they can perform their duties as best they can, as humans.