Ralph Gants 72814

Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court Ralph Gants, left, embraces Mass. Gov. Deval Patrick, right, seconds after being sworn in by Patrick as chief justice during ceremonies at the John Adams Courthouse, Monday. Gants has been an associate justice on the court since 2009, and before that served as a Superior Court judge.

(Steven Senne / Associated Press file)

BOSTON -- The Massachusetts judiciary is launching an effort to examine implicit bias in the state's legal system and figure out why the rates of imprisonment for African-Americans and Hispanics are so much higher than for whites.

"We need to learn the truth behind this troubling disparity and, once we learn it, we need the courage and the commitment to handle the truth," Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Ralph Gants said in his annual State of the Judiciary address, delivered Thursday at the John Adams Courthouse in Boston.

Gants said he has asked Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow to create an independent research team to explore the reasons for racial and ethnic disparities in incarceration rates.

According to the Massachusetts Sentencing Commission, the rate of imprisonment for African-Americans was 5.8 times greater than for whites nationally in 2014, and eight times greater in Massachusetts. The rate of imprisonment for Hispanics was 1.3 times greater than for whites nationally, and 4.9 times greater in Massachusetts.

Gants said the court is training judges and court staff to examine implicit bias and seek to ensure that bias does not affect bail and sentencing decisions.

Racial bias in the legal system has received attention recently due to high-profile cases nationally of apparent racial bias by law enforcement. Massachusetts Bar Association President Jeffrey Catalano said the bar association is planning a program in March about implicit bias in the legal system. Catalano said he has heard from colleagues who are minorities about their experiences with bias in the legal system. "It is eyebrow raising and jaw dropping," Catalano said. "Some subtle and implicit, some is overt."

Massachusetts Trial Court Chief Justice Paula Carey said addressing racial and ethnic disparities is one of the top principles that the trial court is working on in the coming year, trying to determine the impact of the legal system on disparate populations based on race, ethnicity and socioeconomic status. She said the court has been taking steps like developing guidelines for setting pretrial conditions to provide more consistency in judicial decision-making.

On other topics, Gants said the court system is working to make sure that litigants are not punished for being poor. "We are examining whether we are unwittingly punishing poverty by the imposition of fines, fees and restitution that a defendant has no ability to pay, and taking steps to ensure that the inability to pay does not result in the revocation of probation, the inappropriate extension of a period of probation, or time in jail," Gants said.

Gants said the court system created six new court service centers in courthouses that help individuals without lawyers navigate the legal system. But he acknowledged that the justice system is "far, far away from where we need to be."

Gants urged the Legislature to provide money to create more Housing Courts, to ensure that all residents have access to courts that specialize in landlord-tenant cases. Gants said these courts, and programs associated with the courts, save taxpayers money by keeping tenants from becoming homeless and landing in state-funded shelters.

Gants also urged lawmakers to do more to reduce recidivism, potentially by reconsidering fees, such as an indigent counsel fee, which some defendants cannot afford and which can make it harder for them to rejoin society. "If we are committed to reducing recidivism, we should be lending defendants a helping hand to enable them to get back on their feet, not weighing them down with punishing collateral and financial consequences," Gants said.