A new scientific study reveals the critical role that dialect unfamiliarity and prejudice against speakers of African American Vernacular English [AAVE] and other non-standard dialects can play in the criminal justice system. The study, “Language and Linguistics on Trial: Hearing Vernacular Speakers in the Courtroom and Beyond,” by John R. Rickford and Sharese King of Stanford University, was published in the December, 2016 issue of the scholarly journal Language.