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Fixing the justice system?

Author:   Matt Deatherage  
Posted: 8/22/04; 5:00:06 PM
Topic: Fixing the justice system?
Msg #: 908 (top msg in thread)
Prev/Next: 907/909
Reads: 7686

Read this one...Not even Scott Turow or John Grisham could make this up. A juvenile murder trial, a 'sleeping judge, a 'felon prosecutor' and an inexperienced defense attorney. [TalkLeft: The Politics of Crime]

This case is "extraordinary" in that a confluence of events come together in one giant situation that could convict two 12-year-olds of murder as adults, without anyone ever knowing the truth. The part that most people need to understand, but won't, is that some of these things happen in almost every major case:

  • A prosecution with a huge budget works against public defenders with almost no budget
  • The defense never gets to ask the court to prohibit the prosecution from spending taxpayer money on an expert witness, but the prosecution can and does ask the court to stop public defenders from hiring expert witnesses, often succeeding
  • Those who work for the defense or offer to do so get their motives questioned, but those who work for the prosecution, despite anything in their records, do not
  • People trust that the police and prosecutors prefer truth over convictions, and that they would not take advantage of incompetent defendants, but it often happens, as in this case
  • Evidence that might help exonerate the defendants goes untested for months, if it doesn't get "lost" or destroyed

People need to realize that for most non-political crimes, once the police department (or the FBI or the State Police) says "Jacob Doe did it," then there is no longer a presumption of innocence - most people believe the police and in the integrity of police officers, and most people will then believe that Jacob Doe is guilty. Most people really do believe that if Jacob Doe were innocent, he wouldn't be on trial, because our system is supposed to prevent that.

They ought to be able to believe that. But they can't in today's USA. Too many police officers, being entirely human, are under intense pressure to make arrests in high-profile crimes, and a search for the truth turns into a search for what could appear to be true in the right light. Once the police and prosecutors say "Jacob Doe did it," there's tremendous pressure never to back down, so any exculpatory evidence must be suppressed or discredited, as must anyone who advances such evidence or works for the defense.

Read this story and listen to the grief of the mothers who thought the police would do the right thing with their 12-year-old sons, and who now realize they may have helped railroad their children into adult murder convictions. I use the word "railroad" because there's precious little evidence that either of these boys, especially Jake Eakin, should be tried as an adult or that either is getting a fair trial.

This affects you!

You have to have your eyes open about this stuff, people. It's not like TV, where any exculpatory evidence is promptly investigated and leads to dismissal of charges or reversal of convictions. Once the decision to arrest and prosecute is made, it's all but impossible that the police, prosecution, or public will change their minds about your guilt.

This affects you. Look at the statistics:

  • If recent incarceration rates remain unchanged, an estimated 1 of every 15 persons (6.6%) will serve time in a prison during their lifetime.
  • Lifetime chances of a person going to prison are higher for
    • men (11.3%) than for women (1.8%)
    • blacks (18.6%) and Hispanics (10%) than for whites (3.4%)
  • Based on current rates of first incarceration, an estimated 32% of black males will enter State or Federal prison during their lifetime, compared to 17% of Hispanic males and 5.9% of white males.

That's not just being convicted of a life-altering felony or even spending time in the county lockup. That's going to prison. Even for white males, still the most privileged group in the USA, nearly one out of every fifteen will spend time in prison in their lifetimes. For black males (these statistics are by skin color, not ethnic heritage, and include dark-skinned people not of African descent because that's how the prisons track them), it's one in three.

For everyone as a whole, it's one in fifteen. If juries were picked from all Americans and not just from people who've never been convicted of a felony and who have the time and means to serve, then out of every jury with three alternates, one of them would spend time in prison during his or her life. Two people out of most grade-school classes. Six people who work at the Wal-Mart Super Center. Ten people out of my high school graduating class. The number of people arrested in felony investigations, charged with felonies, or convicted of felonies but sentenced to probation must be notably higher - maybe as high as 8%, or two out of every 25 people.

If it's not you, it's going to be someone you know. This affects you. Pay attention to it.

Can it be fixed?

I don't know. I'm a bleeding-heart liberal, but that's because I'm a Christian and that's what Jesus was. I think we need to spend about twice as much on our criminal justice system, not including the prison part.

Police officers should have the respect we all want to believe they deserve, and they should be paid for it. They should be the absolute best people in any community. In my ideal world, the military's Officer Candidate Schools should feel extremely lucky to get candidates who almost qualified as police officers. They should be held to the highest standards possible, and generally viewed with the same impartiality as the referees in sports.

If there's any indication that police officers put anything ahead of the absolute truth in their investigations or that they rushed to judgment, they should be suspended or discharged. If there's any evidence that they acted improperly by ignoring evidence or committing crimes, they should be prosecuted, not given the pass they are today.

This is a tough request. It's asking police officers to put the truth ahead of protecting their partners in questionable investigations, to be willing to put their colleagues in prison to protect the rights of drug dealers and murderers. It is asking them to always put the law and the facts ahead of friendship and personal loyalty, and that's a fat lot to ask of anyone. We all understand why they don't always do this; we only get outraged when it results in someone innocent and sympathetic going to prison. We should always be outraged. Any officer who protects another officer from investigation or punishment should face the same penalty as the officer he protected, be that suspension, discharge, or imprisonment.

Why so strict? No one should ever be afraid to talk to a police officer. No one should ever have to wonder if a police officer is telling the truth, on the stand or at a press conference. An allegation of police brutality should be as shocking and offensive an allegation of kidnapping. Every police officer must be above reproach, the person every schoolkid wants to be but that only the most elite can qualify for.

In exchange, the police deserve the position in society that this difficult and danger earns them, not second-rate civil service status. Starting salaries should be at least US$75,000, and they should get full benefits, the best equipment and technology, and full pensions. Every police department should be fully staffed, so nothing goes undone and no officer has to pull double or triple shifts except in emergencies.

Every department should have professional counseling and mental health services available for all officers, 24/7, with no stigma and no risk. Officers who make honest mistakes and report them as soon as they know it should be exempt from punishment for them, so there's never any reason for an officer to wonder if he or she should tell the truth. Investigations of police conduct must be comprehensive and absolutely free from outside influence, including pressure to convict or acquit officers for their conduct.

They should get raises every year. Everyone can't become a detective, lieutenant, or chief of police, but those who stay on the job and do it well should still get higher pay every year, not be stuck in a middle grade because everyone can't be a supervisor.

Prosecutors should be the same way, and that's even more complicated because the District Attorney is almost always an elected position. Maybe the DA should be appointed by the local judges, I don't know how to solve that. But the public defender's office should get the same budget as the district attorney, with no questions asked. If prosecutors can object to defense spending, then the defense has to get to object to prosecutorial spending. The public must be made to understand that if we can't convict people with a competent defense, they don't deserve conviction or imprisonment. We must hire enough prosecutors and public defenders to avoid stretching the caseloads so thin, and if that means tripling the size of every office, that's what it means. No one gets justice with 2% of some lawyer's attention.

Law school graduates should fight like hell to be assistant DAs or public defenders. They should get similar salary and health benefits as police officers, adjusted slightly downward because the police are in physical danger and the lawyers (typically) are not. Any prosecutor or public defender who is suspected of suborning perjury, withholding evidence illegally (thanks to the presumption of innocence, the defense is not obligated to show all evidence to the prosecution, but the state must show all evidence it finds to the defense), or attempting to thwart justice in any way should be immediately suspended. If the charges are found to be true, the persons involved should be fired and, if necessary, prosecuted. Prosecutors who put protecting their colleagues ahead of the truth, like police officers, should suffer the same penalty as the ones they were protecting.

We also need more judges and more courtrooms. No one should ever have to wait a year in jail to go to trial because everyone is stretched too thin, or two years for an appellate decision. That's going to mean more courts and more appellate courts. Instead of six appellate courts in Calfornia, how about eighteen? Decisions from those can be appealed to six higher courts, and from there to the California Supreme Court, with the new understanding that only the most controversial cases get that far. With better police and prosecutions, though, appellate reversals based on denial of rights or improper conduct should be a lot more rare.

That would also mean courts wouldn't have to limit appeals forever, but perhaps just by time, say one per year on a long felony conviction. Courts shouldn't have to ignore new evidence because it's not "important enough," and the existing sanctions against frivolous appeals could possibly deter new appeals with absolutely no merit. The system's entire purpose must be towards always, always, always finding the truth, no matter the monetary cost or time involved. If someone comes forth twenty years after the fact with evidence that casts doubt on a conviction, a court should hear it. How else can we have confidence that the truth comes out?

Impossible?

This would all be incredibly difficult to pull off, but we need to do it, or something similar. If we want these people to be heroes, and we all do, we need to treat them like our heroes. We have to give them incredible rewards and respect, and make it completely clear from the very start that as long as they always act properly, they'll keep those rewards and respect. The microsecond they put their own welfare above ours, or above the truth, they've lost all of our respect and they have to go.

Anyone who puts expedience above the truth doesn't belong in our justice system. If it's an honest mistake, it can be excused. If it was an intentional but minor decision, even made in fatigue or anger, any people involved must be dismissed with our thanks for their service and whatever pension they have earned. If it was a decision to put their position or reputation above justice, they must be dishonorably discharged and, if appropriate, prosecuted. There must never be any question in anyone's mind that officers of the court are putting us ahead of themselves, because the rewards for acting correctly are great and the punishment for acting incorrectly is swift and severe beyond measure.

It would cost billions of dollars. We might be able to recoup some in future years through declining prison populations, because I pretty firmly believe that a near-perfect justice system would result in fewer questionable convictions and fewer inmates. The real benefits, though, would be societal - absolute faith in the justice system that we all want, absolute faith in police officers, and no more stories like this Seattle Times piece - ever.
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