Our Hidden Prejudices, on Trial

By DAVID GLENN

If bias is unconscious, should people be held legally responsible for it?

In October 2006, a Manchester, N.H., police officer named Michael Briggs was shot to death in an alley. Briggs was part of a bicycle patrol, and he was reportedly a cherished local figure. His accused killer, Michael Addison, has been charged with capital murder. It is the state's first death-penalty case in more than 30 years, and it is racially fraught: Addison is African-American, and Briggs was