“Injustice is relatively easy to bear. What stings is justice.” H. L. Mencken
So, who’s guilty? It isn’t the cops. They don’t set policy.
Blame the political, prosecutorial and to a lesser degree, the judicial class who have caused this condition of abject hatred toward cops, by not supporting them. Throw in the media for deliberate demonization.
The fight for reelection by politicians, and ambition for politics by prosecutors, are the driving forces behind law enforcement policy. Judges rarely have vaunting ambition and are less culpable.
Think about judges as a class. They are either appointed by elected politicians or elected outright and the overwhelming majority are serious people of great stature. Both methods of judge selection have pluses and minuses, but for the most part these are public servants who seek the job with little to gain personally, except maybe a cool license plate. Rarely do judges aspire to political office. Most are overworked, and frequently run unopposed when the campaign season starts. Most of us couldn’t name the judges in our town or county or state.
Their culpability is not using discretion when available to them. Because we are a litigious society the appeals process becomes the real watchdog of who’s judging judges, and they don’t want their rulings overturned. Bad for the image. For the most part they play it straight and narrow, when a little “judgment” would be a benefit to the accused.
The prosecutorial class is vicious and corrupt and a disgrace that manifests itself in the abuse of the poor, the uneducated, the indigent, and people of color.
Please read the book "Just Mercy" by Bryan Stevenson, published about ten years ago. It will change your life. Truly.
So why not seize this moment and overhaul the prosecutorial class? Here’s a partial list of abuses Americans tolerate: absolute immunity, predatory plea bargaining, and freedom of immunity from perjury for false testimony.
We should consider a modified immunity. Prosecutors should be held to a higher standard than police. Though lagging in events, prosecutors drive policing itself. As a group, they are not held accountable for anything but results.
The plea bargain system is atrocious. When hammered by a litany of over-sanctioned offenses, even an innocent man without resources would plea to a lesser included offense to escape harsh confinement. And police and prosecutors do not have to tell the truth to alleged perpetrators prior to an indictment. An awful standard.
Immunity from perjury for false testimony is a bridge too far. A person has no incentive to tell the absolute truth if prosecutors like the story enough to confer immunity from perjury.
It’s a standard prosecutorial gambit with multiple defendants. Be the first to cop a plea, rat out your confederates, and walk. The batting average of the prosecutors remains sky high in furtherance of their ambitions. Lives are ruined.
Over 98% of all criminals are found guilty in court, and over 95% of them have plea bargained for lesser offenses. Are they really that good? Are we really that bad? This is equal justice?
Last, the political class. Right now everyone is laying low, except Trump, who can’t get out of his own way though in this storm his stock will rise in spite of him frequently missing the point.
There is a reckoning coming for the politicos, those who by their silence tacitly support violence against police and the rioting that still continues today. The media is equally complicit in fomenting it all by not reporting the damage, the arson, the violence. Shame.
Ironically, it’s the left that is calling for police to get back to work.
And the police will. Politicians of all parties speak to law and order in the election cycle and will always continue to do so. They enact laws requiring minimum sentencing, three strike life confinement, and the death penalty. All three are aberrations, all taking only political expediency into account and not the story about the person.
Ever hear of a politician saying we need to spend more tax money on hiring defense attorneys for the indigent? No. And you won’t.
I repeat: Blame the political, prosecutorial and to a lesser degree, the judicial class who have caused this condition of abject hatred toward cops, by not supporting them.
Throw in the media for deliberate demonization. This is immoral.
Comments