George Zimmerman and where justice lies. →

Trials are not supposed to be public rituals of expiation. (Sentences are, but that’s another discussion.) They are not vehicles for forgiveness, or mechanisms by which a town or a city “gets past” something. (Neither, it should be said, are they supposed to throw a body to an angry crowd just because it demands one.) To turn this trial into a public ceremony by which Sanford absolves itself for the nearly criminal stupidity with which is has handled this case from jump is to substitute boosterism for justice, George Babbitt for Blackstone. It also is to invite the people who were going to treat this whole thing as Angela Corey’s bending to the will of an angry mob if she did anything except run George Zimmerman for mayor to sharpen their arguments. I hope this whole thing doesn’t turn into that. I have no doubts that it will. Sanford needs to acquit itself too badly. I wish it were possible to cut that deal. I have no doubts that it is not.

That’s the conclusion to Charles Pierce’s post on Zimmerman’s prosecution from earlier today. It gets to something I’ve been thinking about a lot more lately, as I’ve talked with more people about whether/how/if George Zimmerman should be prosecuted.

I’m not opposedto the fact that Zimmerman was charged and arrested, but I’m also not as thrilled about it as most of my friends. I have a few reasons for that, but what they boil down to is that: A) prosecutions by public demand rarely make sense, and they don’t make sense in this case because — while we certainly don’t know all the details — it sure seems like there is a lack of evidence because the Sanford Police, perhaps acting under the orders of the State’s Attorney, neglected to investigate properly. Martin and Zimmerman would be the only people who know what really happened, and Martin is dead; the evidence that would dispute Zimmerman’s claims, like on-the-scene photos, or the clothes he was wearing at the time, does not exist, so it’s hard to prove beyond a reasonable doubtthat Zimmerman did not act in accordance with what Florida considers self-defense. Not because I think Martin was a bad kid, or violent, but because the evidence that would be necessary to prove Zimmerman’s guilt doesn’t exist. Martin can’t testify, and the police fucked up the rest. Prosecuting who we knoware guilty, despite a lack of evidence, is something that happens in this country far too often — and the people who suffer for the loosening of those standards are often people who look like Trayvon Martin.

Which brings us to: B) the problem is not really Zimmerman. I mean, he is the reason for the tragedy of Martin’s death, but punishing Zimmerman will not serve to bring justice here, because the injustice at hand is so much larger than one man. That’s thepoint. That’s why we all know Trayvon Martin’s name: because so many parties abdicated their responsibility to justice here, and George Zimmerman is just the person on whose behalf they did it. Punishing Zimmerman doesn’t address the botched investigation at the hands of the people who are tasked with seeking justice; it doesn’t address the system that tagged Martin as a John Doe; it doesn’t even address the cultural racism that led Zimmerman to see a black kid with a hoodie and some Skittles as a likely criminal. It doesn’t affect the character assassination of the murdered 17 year old by the people who see that as a chance to, I dunno, counter the liberal media or something. It doesn’t make the next Trayvon Martin any safer, because it pins all of the systemic failures that led to his death on the head of one guy.

And if Zimmerman is convicted, we’ll breathe for a minute and act like justice has been done, because this is the only form of justice that we’re pursuing here. And if he’snotconvicted — which is a real possibility given the likely lack of evidence — then we will beoutraged. There will be so much anger, and we will feel so powerless, so frustrated, so dismissed — because we know that, undeniably, the murder of, and response to, the death of Trayvon Martin is a story about how we view young black men in America.

But knowing that, expecting any sort of resolution regardless of whether Zimmerman is convicted is a sucker’s game. He pulled the trigger, but if he’s convicted, it will only tip the scales of justice a small degree. The things we are angry about are much larger than him. Essentially, we’re putting Zimmerman on trial for the sins of the police, and the prosecutors, and the people who tagged Martin as a John Doe, and the stand your groundlaws, and Geraldo, and the racism buried just beneath the surface of America at large. We don’t have a punishment big enough to bring justice for those things on the head of one man. But we don’t have a system that is willing to seek the kind of justice that Trayvon Martin reallydeserves.

The difference between Trayvon Martin and Allen Coon.

This story has been spreading around on conservative blogs and message boards for the past week or so, as the Trayvon Martin story’s gathered momentum. The short version of it is that a 13 year old boy in Kansas City was attacked by two black teenagers, set on fire, and told, “That’s what you get, white boy.”

It’s a horrible story and I’ve zero interest in arguing that one is “worse” than the other. Conservative blogs, meanwhile, have been pointing to the fact that Trayvon Martin’s story has been the subject of a lot of interest and attention, while Allen Coon’s has not, as proof that “it doesn’t matter” because the victim was white.

Here is exactlywhy that’s absurd: Because it doesmatter that Allen Coon was attacked. It matters so much that the police immediately responded. They branded it ahate crime. They conducted an investigation, and put out an APB on the attackers. They treated it exactly the way that police treat crimes that matter.

So there’s no need to hold vigils for justice in the case of Allen Coon, because justice has swiftly and readily been sought by the people tasked to seek justice.

The reason people are outraged over Trayvon Martin’s shooting is not, ultimately, because a black teenager was shot. That happens all the time, frankly. What people are outraged about is that the police didn’t seem to treat it as though a crime had occurred. They don’t feel as though justice was sought on behalf of Martin or his family, andthatis why they’re outraged. This isn’t about “no child should ever be attacked and society should not rest when it happens,” because we don’t live in a world where that would be practical. It’s about the police, and the prosecutors, in Florida who failed to seek justice in any way that the people observing the case recognize as seeking justice.

Or, in short: Allen Coon’s attack was tragic and wrong, and if the police had responded to Trayvon Martin’s in the same manner that they had responded to Coon’s, this would never have become anything close to a national news story.

On #teamdueprocess

I’d actually be pretty interested in the fact that the rights of the accused* and due process were suddenly conservative talking points if I thought there was a chance in hell that they’d give a shit about those things after they couldn’t be used to stick it to liberals, or defend a gun-carrying vigilante who killed a black kid, anymore.

(*”Accused,” but not charged/prosecuted/etc, of course.)

Letter from Corrections Corporation of America to 48 states offering to shore up budget deficits by privatizing prisons -- provided they're at least 90% full. →

Because the profit motive is human nature at its best, and making states contractually obligated to incarcerate a certain portion of their population is just another step on the journey to Libertarian Utopia, right?

jeffmiller:

“More than 500 people were wrongly imprisoned in Denver’s jails over seven years, with some spending weeks incarcerated or pleading guilty to crimes they did not commit before authorities realized they nabbed the wrong person, a federal court filing shows.”

—

Wrongfully jailed: Records detail more than 500 mistaken-identity arrests in Denver in seven years - The Denver Post (h/t Balko)

Some people say that an innocent person doesn’t plead guilty.  Those familiar with the criminal justice system know that it happens all of the time.  

“An innocent person doesn’t plead guilty” is the second most frustrating myth that people who have no idea what they’re talking about spout like it’s fucking received wisdom. (“Everybody in jail says they’re innocent” is the first, if you’re wondering — spouted like it’s deep insight by people who’ve never spoken to people who’ve been through the system because they heard a character say it in a movie that was written by someone who’s never spoken to people who’ve been through the system.)

Anyway — of course innocent people plead guilty. They do it all the time. They do it because the criminal justice system is a risk analysis system: if you’re accused of something you did not do — let’s say you are accused of drug charges because you got pulled over driving your cousin’s car with a few ounces of weed in the glove box or something similarly low-stakes (relatively speaking). You are factually innocent, in that you did not possess the drugs, but the prosecutor looks at you and sees that you’re young and look like you get high and figures, well, maybe those drugs weren’t yours, but you probably do use drugs and offers you a choice. You can plead guilty to possession and take a deal that will have you on probation for a year with no jail time, or you can insist upon your innocence. Your lawyer can fight a prosecutor who will push to see you punished anyway and refuse to dismiss the charges — and that’s if you have a lawyer who isn’t overburdened by a staggering caseload and so isn’t looking to just churn through clients by taking the first plea offered (pro-tip: you can see your attorney’s caseload by requesting a copy of the docket at the courthouse, at least in Texas. If they have pages and pages of clients, you do not have a good lawyer) — and then you can go to trial. Trial is expensive. You have to pay your lawyer for trial. And at trial, you’re not facing down a year of probation with no jail time — if you’re in Texas, you’ve got up to two years in a State Jail (which is a day-for-day sentence; if you’re sentenced to two years, you will be in jail for two full years) plus a $10,000 fine. You know you didn’t do it, but that is not the point: you’ve got a jury of twelve rando assholes out there whose biases are unknown to you. Do you insist upon your innocence forever because it is the right thing to do and pleading guilty would cage your soul?

Or do you take the plea deal?

If you’re not an absurdly reckless human being, you take the plea. Principles are fine when it isn’t your ass on the line.

This sort of thing happens a lot in our system. The math — some probation, or a few months in jail, or whatever consequence you can live with, versus a life-altering sentence — says that most people accused of crimes take the plea. And hardly everyone accused is guilty.

The 2011 Worst Prosecutor of the Year Award | The Agitator →

jeffmiller:

Please read this. Because everyone needs to know that things like this happen.

It really is stunning to see them all written together in a list like that. Bear in mind, now, that the prosecutor takes an oath “to see justice done.” (Defense attorneys, serving in a role that makes them both deeply unpopular and a constitutional necessity, take no such oath.) One of the biggest challenges presented by an adversarial legal system — which, while clearly imperfect, is still the best we’ve come up with as a society — is that it’s hard for people to operate in a system that has two sides opposing one another, but only one of which has “winning” as its goal.

In other words: you get terrible prosecutors because these assholes value winning (see: Catherine Voelker, in the link), which = convictions, over justice, which — certainly in cases like the ones described under Lisa Riniker and Anita Alvarez — equals never prosecuting certain people in the first place, like when it’s abundantly clear that no crime took place at all.

These are small and petty people empowered by us — in every cry for law and order, in every attempt we make to demonize criminals like they’re a separate race — to use the full force of the state to hurt people. Because they can, or because they’re vindictive, or because they can’t ever admit that they’re wrong, or because they have small-minded biases about the world that they can’t let go of, or because they’re protecting political allies.

I got into a discussion in the comments section on Austinist today about DWI, and why everyone should always refuse breath tests (and blood tests, if they’re not required to submit to one by a warrant). This is a stance that makes me pretty unpopular in most of the circles I travel in, because drunk driving is bad and everybody agrees on that. But here’s the thing: when you talk about even a deeply unpopular crime like it’s something that you just need a more zealous enforcer of laws to fix — what you end up doing is empowering people like these prosecutors, who see your support as proof that they should be doing more winning, and that that is justice. (Related: If you’re in Austin, vote for Charlie Baird.)

It is a very easy jump from swearing to see that justice is done, to swearing that if you do it, it must be justice. Prosecutors make that leap all the time. We need to not empower them.

Some thoughts on the social contract. →

I’ve been reading criminal defense lawyer blogs for years now. It’s an important perspective to have, and it’s a useful reminder about things that have come to the national consciousness lately have long been important issues for people in the trenches.

Here’s Houston defense lawyer Mark Bennett, talking about UC-Davis Police Lt. John Pike, and the way that the social contract between citizens and police ought to work both ways:

Neither should John Pike be let off scot-free. Fired? Perhaps, though if he loses his job it will be a political move, intended to make people forget the institutional—and, indeed, societal—failures that allowed him to so cavalierly injure peaceful protestors.

But firing is too good for John Pike. John Pike should spend the rest of his life, until he publicly repents, feeling insecure. And so should every officer who followed him at UC-Davis.

They should not be able to go out to eat without knowing whether their food will be spat in, or worse.

Their babysitters should be chronically unavailable.

They should not be able to get their oil changed without knowing whether their drain plugs will be left loose, or park without knowing if they are going to get another door ding.

They should not be able to rely on the people who collect their trash, who cut their lawns, who cut their hair. All of the conveniences of modern American life that we take for granted should, for these officers, be unreliable.

There are so many things that are chilling about the 9-minute UC-Davis video, but one that I found surprisingly disturbing is the friendly-looking cop keeping the cameras back. He makes his first appearance about 1:15 in, and he’s a normal-looking dude in a black police jacket with an aw-shucks smile and his hands up peacefully — no riot gear here. When directing people in the crowd away from the scrum where Lt. Pike is pepper-spraying their friends, he looks downright approachable. You could be convinced that he’s a nice guy and on your side. He probably answers questions, when you have them.

But he also serves alongside that guy. He may not hold the pepper spray, but he doesn’t do anything to stop it. And that is what chills me about the video — it’s easy enough to believe that any one shitty cop might enjoy the role of the bully, and might get off on teaching the hippies a lesson. Sure, there are bad people in any group. It’s not much of a stretch, either, to imagine that militarized police, all equipped with the same weapons and wearing the same armor, would be poised for conflict, and so his fellow riot troops might feel the need to also maintain command presence. But it’s not just them. It’s the smiling, friendly police officer who just wants you to stay back for your own safety who enables Lt. Pike to spray your friends in the face. He doesn’t have to hold the can — he’s part of the operation.

That’s what sticks with me to my core about UC-Davis, I think — not just that some asshole cop sprayed students, but that none of the other officers on the force dreamed of stopping him. I hope they all check their sandwiches for suspicious stains for the next decade.

I wasn’t going to write anything about Troy Davis.

Everybody I know seems to agree with me, and I don’t really feel the need to take part in the echo chamber sometimes. I almost find it frustrating when the debate gets caught up on innocence, too, because — especially as I get older, learn more about executions, and spend more time with people who’ve fought these battles, as activists or as lawyers (or, more often, as both) — I’ve found that the possibility of innocence isn’t even my primary reason for opposing it. It just highlights the injustice.

So I wasn’t going to write anything. But I follow a few football players on Twitter — mostly just the really bright guys who are unafraid to speak their minds about subjects off of the field — and I was reading the feed for Chris Harris, who plays safety for the Chicago Bears. Harris was re-tweeting some messages he’d received from his rather diverse base of followers, and once they got to the bible quotes, it got me thinking, once more, about one of the stories I always thought was coolest when I was a kid. You know the one — John 8:7. “If any one of you is without sin, let he be the first to throw a stone at her.”

I haven’t been a Christian for a very long time, but I still like that one. Because who the hell are we? Who among us is qualified to take the life of anyone else? Ultimately, that’s what it comes down to for me: Regardless of whether or not there are people who “deserve to die,” we’re incapable of producing a qualified executioner.

And that’s not just some bible talk, you know, but it highlights what is so maddening about our society that I am as unable to process how we’ve created it as all of you probably feel right now. The same religion that is used to justify oppressing gay people, women, people who don’t share that belief system, etc, etc, etc, etc — that is the one that says unless you haven’t ever done anything wrong in your life, ever ever (what I liked best about that story is that he wasn’t saying, “only non-adulterers can stone this lady,” because we all break from what we know is right sometimes, and when that is true, we’re all unqualified to stand in judgment), you have no right to judge.

So they throw out the part that urges compassion, and embrace the parts that justify oppression. It’s not just hypocrisy — hypocrisy is a personal failing — it’s evil. I don’t know how to describe it in other words, less dramatic ones. But that is what happens when you try to enforce a religion in law. The only thing that can ever come of that is evil.

And I guess Troy Davis — guilty or innocent, I honestly can’t be convinced it matters — knew that, and had it affirmed tonight. There isn’t a whole lot to say about it that you haven’t heard before, of course, but sometimes it feels worth saying again.