There are other demographic factors that could count too: sex, age, social class ... and if a policy of "OK, conviction standards for blacks are lower" would be political suicide
Isn't that the status quo?
Not explicitly, as far as I know (implicitly, possibly, hence what I said about over-correcting).
This thread is for discussing anything that doesn't seem to deserve its own post.
If the resulting discussion becomes impractical to continue here, it means the topic is a promising candidate for its own thread.