In courtrooms cold with practiced grace,
The law unfolds its solemn face.
But beneath the robes and echoed pleas,
Lies justice tangled in unease.
They speak of guilt that’s shared and wide,
Of presence cast as co-applied.
Yet numbers whisper what words evade
Whose futures here are more betrayed?
Blacks at just four percent, not more,
Yet make up thirty percent of the cases’ core.
Sixteen times the weight they bear,
For crimes where doubt still hangs in the air.
In London’s docks, the lines divide:
With fifty-four percent blacks
Accused by sleight of hand.
Compared to nineteen percent whites
That take the stand.
A shadowed doctrine, broad and blunt,
Turns silence into legal hunt.
One gaze, one text, one fleeting call,
Enough to see a young life fall.
And still we ask: is this the law?
Or prejudice in practiced draw?
When justice leans on race to rule,
It breaks its own foundational tool.
So let us speak what must be named
This system’s not just flawed, but framed.
Until the scales are held with care,
Joint Enterprise is far from fair.
