The foundation of our democracy is the rule of law and faith in the justice system. One of the greatest struggles we face as judges in maintaining that faith is the struggle against bias. As Justice Kennedy eloquently and correctly stated, “Bias is easy to attribute to others and difficult to discern in oneself.” Williams v. Pennsylvania, 136 S.Ct. 1899, 1905 (2016). Our efforts to discern and eliminate bias in the court system require many tools, and it is no surprise that in our digital world we look to technology to help achieve our goals.

Bias and discrimination take many forms, including implicit and institutional. The past year and the death of George Floyd shined a bright light on racism and racial bias both within society at large and particularly within our justice system. One area of particular importance for the elimination of racial bias is in the sentencing of criminal defendants. Judicial endeavors to understand and eliminate racial bias often focus on sentencing, not only because incarceration is a serious restriction of rights, but because sentences are easier to track and commodify than other aspects of the justice system. Such tracking has shown racial disproportion when comparing the composition of the general population with the composition of the prison population, as well as disproportionately longer sentences for people of color as compared to whites. This clearly undermines the promise of the 14th Amendment, which guarantees equal protection under the law. Although there has been improvement in this area and a narrowing of the gap between treatment of defendants of different races over the past few decades, reaching true equality in sentencing continues to be an area of critical importance.

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