Mistakes and Debates in Criminal Law: The Downside of Justice:
Unfortunately, the answer is no; Justice is indeed blind, and Justice does make mistakes. Judicial error, as it is called, is a sad fact of life – innocents are mistakenly arrested, people argue over different aspects of the justice system, and even the courts hand down the wrong sentence from time to time. Nothing in this world is perfect, after all.
Consider those persons arrested by the cops every day. You would think they are all criminals, and you would be right, right? Wrong. Like Justice, the cops are not perfect – and some sneaky crooks would go to great lengths to make someone else look guilty. Even if the crooks do not get somebody else in trouble with the law, the innocent must often pay dearly for their own defense. Moreover, innocence is not always a sure bet anyone will stay out of the “big house,” either (in other words, avoidance of going to jail, prison, etc.).
That is a lesson a woman named Marjorie Blaha learned firsthand, as described below:
“When she was charged with a crime she didn’t commit, Blaha took comfort in the belief that innocence is the ultimate defense. A veteran of the U.S. Navy, she had great trust in her country and, by extension, its system of justice. Blaha mistakenly assumed she would be treated as innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around. Instead, she spent 116 days in jail, where she was strip-searched, assaulted by another inmate, and confined to a tiny cell. Her life was threatened and her health suffered. Eventually, Blaha received her day in court, and the jury quickly found her innocent. That did not restore her reputation, health, life savings, or the thousands of dollars borrowed from relatives to help pay for her defense.” (Source: USA Today, 1995)
Innocent persons winding up behind bars are not the only issue in criminal justice to receive scrutiny. Capital punishment – the so-called “death sentence” where convicted murderers lose their own lives in the name of justice – has a long history of debate in American justice, due in part to the constitutional right to fair punishment, rather than unusual cruelty (this is why some parts of the United States do not even have a death penalty). This debate has never heated up quite like it has since two things: the electric chair and a confusing 5-4 Supreme Court decision in 1976 invalidating all existing state death-penalty laws” that forced the rewrite of these laws to “conform with the Court’s requirements.” (National Review, 2000) Many an execution has left people wondering if capital punishment that is not cruel to the convicted does not exist. Again, innocence often plays into dealings on death row: about one percent of those sent to die later are determined to be innocent in appeals cases.
In addition, sometimes even the judge handling a case needs to get a clue, so to speak. There are plenty of times where ineptitude leads to the wrong sentence, or a dangerous convict walking free. Consider the following:
“In New York City, a movement is under way to impeach Criminal Court Judge Laurin Duckman. A 33-year-old woman sought court protection from a former boyfriend, a convicted rapist, who had attacked her three times. Despite the beatings, Judge Duckman coolly noted that the woman was “bruised but not disfigured,” lowered bail in the case and suggested that the man would stop bothering the woman if she gave back his dog. Three weeks later, the man shot her to death. In another domestic violence case, Judge Duckman allowed a beater to go free hours after a jury had found him guilty. Last month, the man was charged with another attack on the same woman.”
(Source: U.S. News and World Report, 1996)
Now ask yourself why this judge ignored the dangerous extent of two domestic abuse cases. Here is the short answer: ineptitude. Long answer: the judge did not have the necessary experience to handle the cases, was having a bad day, did not have a clue, was ill prepared or just did not give a . Moreover, it happened not just once, but twice. Nobody’s perfect, least of all those on our judicial courts. Nevertheless, where criminal minds are involved, you would think that the judges would make the right decision – and the sad fact is some judges make an occasional mistake (or in the case of Judge Duckman, make too many mistakes haphazardly). I am not saying all judges are that bad, but you would expect better. Moreover, what you see on Law and Order is not what you get in real life all the time. It is a sad fact, but it is true.
So between the downside of a wrongful arrest, the debate over the death penalty and incompetent judges, there are plenty of reasons that like anything else in life, not even the courts perfect… and neither are the cops. Judicial error is, and will continue to be, a sorry part of our criminal justice system. It is only human, after all. Deal with it.
