Dismantling the Master's Algorithm: Understanding Defense Attorney Use of Algorithmic Recommendation Tools Using N. K. Jemisin's Red Dirt Witch

• Pages: 1469-1490
• Date: 01 June 2024
• Published date: 01 June 2024
• Author: Cierra B. Robson
• Subject Matter: Derecho Civil

Dismantling the Master’s Algorithm:

Understanding Defense Attorney Use of Algorithmic

Recommendation Tools Using N. K. Jemisin’s

Red Dirt Witch

CIERRA B. ROBSON*

Across the United States, algorithmic tools are proliferating throughout

the criminal legal system, with more than 3,000 jurisdictions in the United

States using some sort of predictive technology to determine where police

should be deployed, who should be arrested, how long defendants should

be detained, whether someone is eligible for parole, and more. While these

new technologies promise a more just and equitable society, scholars have

shown that they often only reinforce bias and perpetuate systemic harms.

This Essay explores how legal advocates f‌ind creative ways to use the sys-

tems that they oppose to the benef‌it of their clients. Using N. K. Jemisin’s

f‌ictional musings, I evaluate the case of pretrial detention hearings in New

Jersey criminal courts wherein defendants are assigned a risk score by a

pretrial risk assessment tool. Despite the scholarship and experiential

knowledge of practitioners that suggest how harmful these risk assessment

tools can be for defendants, legal advocates continue to develop legal

strategies that subvert these harms. Using N. K. Jemisin’s work, I docu-

ment new strategies that lawyers in the New Jersey context use which pri-

oritize long-term gains even if immediate wins are less available.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1470

I. AFROFUTURISM AND TECHNOLOGICAL FUTURES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1473

A. DEFINING AFROFUTURISM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1473

B. N. K. JEMISIN’S AFROFUTURISM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1474

II. EMPIRICAL CONTEXT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1476

A. WHY PRETRIAL? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1479

B. NEW JERSEY’S CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM ACT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1480

III. KEY PROVISIONS OF THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM ACT . . . . . . . 1482

* Ph.D. in Sociology & Social Policy, Department of Sociology, Harvard University. © 2024, Cierra

Robson.

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IV. RESISTING TECHNOLOGICAL NIGHTMARE-SCAPES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1486

CONCLUSION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1490

INTRODUCTION

The appeal of science f‌iction often takes shape as possibility: the stories ani-

mated by creatives provide society with concrete visions of tech-centric futures

that society may be able to achieve.

1

While such visions can seem appealing to

all, these visions are often articulated by white authors who center the utopias of

those in power.

2

In many cases, subordinated groups are forced to live in visions

of those in power. One person’s utopia can quite easily become another’s dysto-

pia.

3

As a subgenre of science f‌iction, Afrofuturism continues to dabble with

themes of possibility, though it is also deeply invested in depicting utopias that

center Blackness. Still, one of the central themes of Afrofuturism is the copro-

duction of utopias and dystopias.

Beyond the f‌ictive, our political life is shaped by these dystopia–utopia pairs

of technological futures. Science technology and society scholar Sheila Jasanoff

describes these visions as “sociotechnical imaginaries,” or the “collectively held,

institutionally stabilized, and publicly performed visions of desirable futures,

animated by shared understandings of forms of social life and social order

[made] attainable through, and supportive of, advances in science and tech-

nology.”

4

Importantly, she emphasizes that many sociotechnical imaginaries

can exist at once and can come into conf‌lict as people hold different visions

of a desirable future.

5

Numerous examples ref‌lect this political tension. In recent memory, the over-

turning of Roe v. Wade,

6

our current immigration enforcement practices,

7

See, e.g., Elliot Spagat, Americans Divided on Immigration and Refugees, New AP Poll Says, PBS

NEWSHOUR (Mar. 7, 2023, 11:15 AM), https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/americans-divided-on-

immigration-and-refugees-new-ap-poll-says [https://perma.cc/Y8SR-X6HP].

and the

1. Consider examples of f‌lying cars, cell phones, FaceTime, spaceships, etcetera.

2. See I. Bennett Capers, Afrofuturism, Critical Race Theory, and Policing in the Year 2044, 94

N.Y.U. L. REV. 1, 11–14 (2019).

3. The idea that utopias rely upon—or at least coproduce—dystopias is common in Afrofuturist

literature and science f‌iction. From more mainstream texts like Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s

Tale and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, to Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Ones Who Walk Away from

Omelas and Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower, each of these texts explores what happens when

antagonists and protagonists have different visions of what the future should hold. Those forced to live

in dystopic realities use the tools at their discretion to build alternative utopic worlds. While some opt

out of these dystopic worlds entirely, others stay in dystopic realities to f‌ight for better futures.

4. Sheila Jasanoff, Future Imperfect: Science, Technology, and the Imaginations of Modernity, in

DREAMSCAPES OF MODERNITY: SOCIOTECHNICAL IMAGINARIES AND THE FABRICATION OF POWER 1, 4

(Sheila Jasanoff & Sang-Hyun Kim eds., 2015).

5. See id.

6. 410 U.S. 113 (1973), overruled by Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Org., 597 U.S. 215 (2022).

7.

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