BY ROBERTO CELESTIN
Every heroine/villain needs a weakness. Superman’s weakness was red or green kryptonite, Hulk’s weakness was his own anger and Cyclops could not even control his own optic blasts. For if they are too strong what’s the point of even trying. But what happens when there is nothing/no one powerful enough to counter a powerful and ambitious entity? We were reminded what were the possibilities of what a powerful and ambitious entity could do last Thursday.
It was a pleasure having Mr. Thomas Giovanni reminding us that the constitution doesn’t guarantee us much as we would like to think it does. And that the government through agents i.e. prosecutors/legislators/judges abuse their powers to get a conviction or fast resolution to complex issues. In doing so their abuses usually lead to unjust rulings/unfair laws which could possibly ruin life’s and destroys communities. When Mr. Giovanni asked if there was any way we could suppress or control these abuses we were stumped. A few Verons gave reasonable solutions to the issue but were struck down with the reality better known as bureaucracy. As Mr. Giovanni demonstrated to us it is much easier and faster for us as students to remove a failing grade then then for a convicted felon to appeal a court case which could possibly save an inmate’s life. I am sorry but, shouldn’t it be the other way around? Yes we as students deserve these rights but when someone is on the verge of losing their life shouldn’t we treat them with more empathy. But since our views of criminals are so negative we feel that they should suffer, whether or not they are innocent or not. Or even it was ambitious government agents abused their powers to brand them as criminals. Whether it is in my agency Common Justice or in my neighborhood I have seen how people you expect to protect and serve you could possibly ruin your life just so they could reach a quota. This needs to change.
With bureaucracy rampant within our government how do we maintain control of superman without a kryptonite? After having several days to think about it is there any kryptonite for legislator/prosecutorial/judges? In other words is there any way we could combat the powers of the government from hurting the little rights we do have? Is there any way we could make politicians, prosecutors, and police offices more responsive to the people they serve rather than themselves or the culture they are within? BE CREATIVE HELP ME FIND THAT KRYPTONITE.
24 comments:
I think this goes both ways. If we tell the government to ease up, how do we control the 'legit criminals' that will take advantage of it. There's really no middle in this that I could think of that wouldn't tilt one side or the other. Is it all the governments fault though? I don't support what the government is doing, we may not have corruption like China but we are pretty corrupt in that government officials are bitter and overworked. Someone (I think Popy) mentioned that we could create another Review Board to look over cases, I think they would then be overworked and we'd be right back where we started. Truthfully, I don't really know how to control the kryptonite because in the end, all heroes are human.
Thank you Mr. Giovanni for such an eye-opening class!
Education must be at the core of the solution. Education for everyone would be beneficial for the entire society. Through education “civilians” and law enforcement officials would have a better understanding of the law, policy, and maybe some historical context. Citizens need to have a better understanding of their rights, and we must present the opportunity for them to get an education that will allow a better understanding of those rights. I really like what the New York District Attorney’s office is doing with their Internal Affairs Unit. If only their progress could be available to the public then it might force them to be more effective. We need to get people to care about these issues. We need people to feel that they can make a difference and that their vote counts. We must advocate towards educating the younger generation. Jenny, the Executive Director of Esperanza said to me last week, “I work with kids because children have hope.” Let’s all find the inner-child in all of us.
In an ideal world, John Rawls’ original position is a great way to start reforming the criminal justice system. Rawls purposes a thought-experiment to evaluate whether or not certain laws should be put in place. This thought-experiment is known as the veil of ignorance. We are to imagine a situation where people are unaware of their own characteristics, interests, class, gender, race, or any other factor that might be disadvantageous or advantageous to them. Through this veil of ignorance the society will collectively decide of what principles of justice should be pursued. This idea mixed in with an actual democracy, a social contract that included ALL citizens, would help our dilemma. However, we do not live in this ideal world and things are not going to change within the hierarchy of capitalism.
Great post, Robert! Before I start, I’d like to give special thanks to Thomas Giovanni for another great class discussion. It’s always a pleasure to have him visit us. I’ve learned a lot from the readings we were assigned and our class discussions. How foolish of me to think a piece of paper filled with unusual jargon protects me as an American. I was stunned to learn that I can be tried without physically being in a courtroom.
The idea of prosecutors hiding evidence that can prove someone’s innocence is just mindboggling. It generates a lot of negative energy and deteriorates my trust in the criminal justice system. As I mentioned in class, I believe one way this issue can be fixed is if someone is hired to review all cases one final time to ensure that the sentencing is not only reasonable and fair but the person sentenced is actually guilty of the crime. Now, the question is should all cases have a final review? I know this question was raised in class but due to time restraints, we weren’t able to tackle it.
And Dani, you are correct about the review board being my idea!
Since Christine brings up Rawls, I want to offer a counterweight to Rawls’ ideal system of justice, which is based on the notion of reasonable and rational actors who, Rawls tells us, “desire for its own sake a social world in which they, as free and equal, can cooperate with others on terms all can accept". Such actors should engage politically under "the veil of ignorance", a point of view unaffected by the social circumstances of the world. In a system of reasonable, rational actors, the redress of wrongs-like prosecutorial misconduct, let’s say-is a claim taken up by the society itself and addressed through civil disobedience on behalf of the aggrieved.
A counterweight to this idealized view is that of Jurgen Habermas’ value pluralism, which acknowledges that our perspective regarding what constitutes justice and fairness for all is inevitably based on the contingencies that Rawls wants us to delete. In the real world (this is me speaking, not Habermas), so called consensus about what is the right thing to do is based on who/what gets the majority of votes, which may be based on both values formed as a result of experience as well as the dynamics of power accruing in any specific circumstance. I would imagine, although I have no idea what data exist, that prosecutorial misconduct flourishes best in political environments where regulation is lax and the general “consensus” is that criminal defendants have too many rights, not too few.
I think we are all correct in vocally advocating for more procedural review and greater punishment for prosecutors who disregard laws already on the books. But I feel like the sad truth is that no one has made the persuasive case politically that the rights of defendants should be considered sacrosanct and fundamental to any claim of fairness and justice in the judicial system. While notions of this are made explicit in the enumeration of certain constitutional rights, in our political discourse just the opposite is true. Without the political will it is hard to make change. Can you even imagine a candidate running on a “Fairness to Criminal Defendants” platform, instead of a “Law and Order” one? Ha! I cannot even imagine a T.V. show by that name.
Well, after Professor Stein's characteristically incisive comments, what I was going to say seems idealistic at best. I'm going to say it anyway, but before I do, I just want to acknowledge what the professor has said. It's true: There is neither the political will nor the cultural dispositions needed for real change toward better protection of the rights of criminal defendants. This is evident in Dani's comment as well. It hasn't always been this way, though. Throughout the 70s and 80s, at the height of an era characterized by what David Garland aptly calls "penal welfarism," we used to believe that the role of the criminal justice system was to rehabilitate lawbreakers. It was also a time when public defenders offices and legal advocacy organizations were better funded, and we, as a nation, took due process and the protection of rights more seriously. The scaffolding under these notions was a logic in which criminal defendants and lawbreakers were seen as people who had strayed from the fold--for reasons economic, social, political, racial, etc--and needed to be brought back in. Garland's writes an entire, amazing book (I'm taking his class next semester!!) about how we moved into our current "culture of control." Throughout the 90s and the 00s, there was a shift in the penological field; tough on crime legislation, mandatory minimum prison sentences, three-strikes laws, disorder policing, etc. were what characterized the age. It is within this climate that prosecutors have become Supermen without Kryptonite, that Law and Order can be found on TV nearly 24 hours a day, that a prison sentence became about incapacitation for as long as possible. The list goes on. That truly is where we are now, as Professor Stein points out. I know I have vastly oversimplified Garland's argument and have verged on romanticizing "penal welfarism" as a golden age, but I do think there's something to what Christine says about childish hope. I find it in history.
What I was going to say in response to Roberto's great post was that the prosecutor-as-superman phenomenon is built into the structure of the CJ system. Therefore, the best way to remedy it, is to change the structure, leaving aside the fact that there's NO political will to do so, at least at the moment. Think about it, the prosecutor's side has nearly unlimited state resources to prosecute a case; the defense has practically none (I'm talking about state resources.) Thomas illustrated this quite nicely for us. To me, this evidences how we view the role of the state. We see it as an entity that should work to guarantee our security. This view in itself has solidified in this "culture of control" era (having to do with the rise of neoliberalism, I'd say, but I won't go there). Imagine if we thought the state was also supposed to work to guarantee our rights and that this role was equal to its other major role. It would require that we had a defense office that received state funding equal to what the prosecutor's office received, that had investigators the way the prosecutor has the police, etc. This would help to balance the power. Probably some guilty people would be found not guilty, maybe a number equal to the number of innocent people found guilty under our current unequal system. We used to think it was better that ten guilty people go free than that one innocent one go to prison. We don't think that anymore, at least not today.
Once again thank you so much Mr. Giovanni for making time on your schedule to come and teach us about the corrupt and injustice court system. I learned quite a lot about the court system: the prosecutor being the most powerful man in court because they decide the charges, a criminal record staying on your background forever, and the unequal punishments given to prosecutors. The fact that you can be tried without you physically being there is out of this world. Our Constitution is vague and and to an extent not helpful.
Our criminal justice is injustice just by the way prosecuters are not punished the same as a regular citizen who has committed the same crime. It all shows how people with power, a title, uniform (cops), and of course you cannot forget money can get away with crimes. We live in a society where "money talks"! If you have money you would be believed more than a person who does not. It explains why the court system is constantly targetting minorities.
I am disappointed that I had to miss Thomas' visit to the seminar. Mr. Giovanni, who I consider to be an intense speaker confirms my belief that a person can be powerful in their message without being loud and animated.
Roberto, as you know, I'm a person who loves to play around with words and metaphors so you know I'm feeling your post! Let me say this, the Hulk's anger was a gift and a curse. His anger and rage enabled him to respond to the frustrations of the injustices he witnessed. Without that anger, he would have continued to be violated and pushed around as the wimpy David Banner that he was. Sometimes people need to feel anger, take a stand and react to the blatant atrocities that are going on around them. But how to react is key. WE are the kryptonite to the super-prosecutors. How do we give the power back to the people? I think prosecutors being bitter and/or overworked does not excuse them from taking advantage of their position and power by violating the rights of defendants because they know that there is little chance of them being sanctioned. Well, now defendants become bitter because they are overconvicted, oversentenced and also overlooked as citizens with the right to due process, which includes the disclosure of exculpatory evidence. But how do we give the power back to the people? A good start would be going about changing the perception of the "unconvicted" defendant. As Roberto mentioned, we tend to want criminal defendants to suffer even before they have been convicted. Many times, the prosecution is not concerned about convicting "the right guy" just as long as they get "a" conviction.
Roberto, the reason why there is no easy solution (kryptonite) to this Super-problem is because no policy, law or any other entity to review or oversee these villains, if implemented into the CJS will eradicate the problem. Why? I think we are searching for an external solution when it can only be fought and found from within. With that I mean we have to work on changing people's mind-set and outlook on defendants of a particular group from literature to movie and media portrayal of a certain population. These groups of people have to be seen in a different light inorder to give power back to the people.
I just had to say how awesome Tim's post is. This is a particularly sparkling gem: "WE are the kryptonite to the super-prosecutors." Powerful sentiment, as true ones always are.
Along with everyone else, thank you Thomas Giovanni for being an honest open book towards a topic as vivid as prosecutorial misconduct. This is a very real and serious problem that continues to play a huge part on how the underprivileged are treated in court, however, (I hope you don’t rip me too much to shreds when you read what I have to say) my inner voice lures me to play devil’s advocate and once again takes me out of the linear ways of approaching such a topic. Setting aside the cases of the innocence project and people such as John Thompson, Fernando Bermudez etc., the truth of the matter is that there are more people ACTUALLY committing crimes than not. While we focus on these individual cases that are more uncommon than common, it leaves the criminals who actually enjoy this life of crime open to play on the “It’s because I’m African American/Hispanic/Asian “ etc card. Why is everything so black and white in this day and age? Whatever happened to the gray?
Here’s where I’m really going to ruffle some feathers: The way Trayvon Martin died was unnecessary and the shooter was wrong but to what extent are we going to allow the media to abuse the vulnerability of such a case. The man had a legal weapon on him that the police department knew about and approved of him carrying around. The facts are that the media portrays Martin to be an upstanding citizen and well behaved young man when the facts remain that Martin was suspended on three occasions for bringing drugs and a knife to school. He has many, many photos up on his face book where he shows his gang affiliations along with writing obscenities and gloating about fighting and smoking marijuana with his friends at school. Now yes he was just a kid but he wasn’t what the media portrays him to be. Even the picture they chose wasn’t updated. It’s a picture of him three years ago. Now Al Sharpton has planned the million hoodie march to “fight for Justice”. I don’t see the media blasting coverage or marches organized on the Christian/Newsom murders, where 4 African American males and 1 female savagely, brutally gang raped, sodomized, tortured, burned alive, and ultimately shot to death a white female and a white male.
What REALLY IS justice? Is it what we feel or what’s right? Is this what we succumbed to? It’s okay to murder a white couple because they were” privalaged” so we don’t need to publicize that murder. Keep it in house but we musnt let this young boys murder go unheard because he was black and he was 17 years old. In any case that murder didn’t spread throughout the U.S. like Martin’s death did and why is that? Is it more politically correct to focus on the type of violence that the public feels like hearing? Well that’s just not justice to me. We have bigger things to worry about in this country right now is just my opinion. {These are just my opinions and I apologize in advance if I’ve offended anyone. It wasn’t meant for that}.
Kudos to Mr. Giovanni's topic this past week!
I was very surprised to see that many of us didn't know we could actually be accused falsely and have a case without us being in the courtroom. Something similar happened to my father and it was only a minimal credit card debt. The many steps that people have to pass just to fight for their innocence is crazy. I started to think about Kafka's novel, which I got to read last semester. He starts of by describing a trap that you become encaged in and justice is painted to you as a way of looking for an end to it all, yet that justice never appears. Justice is the law.
The following youtube link says this:
"Before the law, there stands a guard. A man comes from the country, begging admittance to the law. But the guard cannot admit him. Can he hope to enter at a later time? "That is possible," says the guard. The man tries to peer through the entrance. He had been taught that the law should be accessible to every man. "Do not attempt to enter without my permission," says the guard. "I am very powerful. Yet I am the least of all the guards. From hall to hall, door after door, each guard is more powerful than the last." By the guard's permission, the man sits down by the side of the door, and there he waits. For years, he waits. Everything he has, he gives away in the hope of bribing the guard, who never fails to say to him, "I take what you give me only so that you will not feel that you have left something undone." Keeping his watch during the long years, the man has learned to know even the fleas in the guard's fur collar. The man growing childish in old age, he begs the very fleas to persuade the guard to change his mind and allow him to enter. His sight has dimmed, but in the darkness he perceives a radiance streaming immortally from the door of the law. And now, before he dies, all he's experienced condenses into one question, a question he's never asked. He beckons to the guard. Says the guard, "You are insatiable! What is it now?" Says the man, "Every man strives to attain the law. How is it then that in all these years, no one else has ever come here, seeking admittance?" His hearing has failed, so the guard yells into his ear, "No one else but you could ever have obtained admittance! No one else could enter this door! This door was intended only for you! And now, I am going to close it." This tale is told during the story called "The Trial". It has been said that the logic of this story is the logic of a dream... a nightmare."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXA7RtM_GFY
This video was playing in my mind as I thought about even the presumed guilty people who receive unequal punishment. For example, capital punishment or the opportunity a person gets to self- represent themselves when the person doesn't know nothing about the way the court works in reality. Applying education would work, as Christine suggested, but I still think that when there is a hand in power at the top it's because someone is being oppressed at the bottom in order for them to have that power. The kryptonite is that person at the bottom, IF they can one day get to the top and fix what injustice.
All the statements made by everyone are wonderful. As Christine points out education is the remedy to this situation. This would certainly increase citizen activity within the political arena. To increase understanding since we are the kryptonite I think what we are learning is extremely important. As Professor Stein points out that “prosecutorial misconduct flourishes best in political environments where regulation is lax and the general consensus I that criminal defendant have to many rights, not too few”. This is an interesting comment because it helps me realize that a great decade of advancement in democracy didn’t accidently become a war on crime and then to a war on drugs. People felt that more security was a must because the idea that more rights is being guaranteed is something scary to many people. We need to ask ourselves why we (as a country) are so scared of our criminals and have such a high incarceration rate. To be more precise with our examination we must honestly ask ourselves why incarceration rates are higher amongst specific groups of people. As Emerson puts it “fear always springs from ignorance”, knowledge and understanding of these complex ideas are imperative to how we understand why prosecutors abuse their powers. And ultimately they feel that they can get away with it. Because at the end of the day they think they are working for the people and they want to exploit us-the people they are “working for” political gain. Although I think education which some of us would agree would easily lead to more participation in government we also need an equal distribution of economic resources to help individuals defend themselves in the court of law.
Did everyone see the first item under "Campus Events" on the John Jay College homepage? It reads, "Graduate student and exonoree Jeffrey Deskovitz's work on behalf of the wrongfully convicted featured in the Wall Street Journal," and it links to the article.
Interesting conversation, gang. Sorry to be joining so late. Social media is kryptonite, isn't it? This is not to be childishly hopeful about social media -- at best, social media/the internet is a value-neutral and slippery entity as we learned during Simon's class. But it certainly upsets the balance of power in a way that you all have suggested we need to do to become a more just society. If you think that exposure, even if it is messy and able to be manipulated (as Ruby suggests is going on with the Trayvon case), leads to justice (and I do) then we have to see social media as kryptonite. I'd actually take the Trayvon case as an example from another position than Ruby. This is a case where a dangerous law (Stand Your Ground) and permissive gun laws (armed neighborhood watches? totally frightening!!!!!) and excessive police discretion(no arrest, minimal investigation)gave a certain individual WAY too much power to make the ultimate decision about another individual's life. Even if you accept that EVERYTHING that has been put out there about Trayvon is true (and as a mother of teenager who could so easily have a rap sheet the length of Trayvon's -- kids make mistakes, folks -- I think to paint him thusly as criminal is ridiculous), that doesn't speak to the abuse of power of the state on so many levels. The only thing that did speak back to the state here was the way the story spread on social media.
Dear Devil's Advocate,
We cannot set aside cases that involve injustice. They are not isolated or exceptions. They are prime examples of the violation of human life and liberty. Let us not be fooled. Let's remain conscious of the plot that has been put in place and is currently being carried out. The stop and frisks, the frivolous arrests, the convictions for minor offenses serve as, for one, a way for controlling the political arena. When a large amount of individuals from a particular group looses their voting rights, this will obviously be in favor of the other political group. The frivolous frisks, arrests and convictions are also used as a future ticket of justification for acts of injustice. That is why when a terrible act is committed against certain individuals, the first thing that happens is that their criminal history (even just a mere encounter with the law) is publicized. This is so that the public would have less empathy for the victim and be brainwashed into considering that the act was justified. They won't see him as a victim but as a person who deserves what happened to him. No matter what is released to the public regarding a person's background, that should NEVER give cause, justification or solice to his/her killing, especially without provocation. Devil's Advocate, all cases of unnecessary lost of life do to violence is horrific. However, the underpublicization of one, should not call for the downplay of another. Let us not get distracted and loose consciousness of the plot and the history of it. This young man had a bag of Skittles, Bang! Bang! Amadou Diallo had a wallet, Bang! Bang!(I should actually write "Bang!" 43 times) But how much have really changed through the years? Emmett Till had a "roaming eye", Bang! Bang! But even now with the tragic death of this young man, people are still buying in on the " Bernhard Goetz Defense".
Hey, I have a bridge for sale!
Professor Reitz and Timothy, you both make a great points. Social media can be viewed as a kryptonite to both parties. It all depends on what the media thinks the people will play most on. We are all victims of the puppeteer media gurus and Timothy you are right in that we CANNOT set aside the cases that involve in your face injustice. (like Giovanni said, " God said you weren't there when the DNA did not match, what else can be said!") . I will agree that it is ridiculous to paint Trayvon as a criminal and simply on teenage behavior but I think that his blood lies more on the hands of those in power( chief of police, government etc.) than the man who pulled the trigger. He should not have had a firearm to begin with and even if Trayvon did indeed attack him like he claims, when the police were called they should have arrived at the scene immediately to disolve the problem and remove his weapon as oppose to just the telling him to not follow Trayvon. This case is sad on ALL LEVELS.
I almost forgot to post. I did forget to post. Posting last allows me to talk about a lot of the different issues and ideas brought up though, so this should be interesting.
My personal view of what the solution to these problems of prosecution oversight would also be long term education. As Mr. Giovanni showed everybody in class, we don't know much about anything related to our rights when dealing with the criminal justice system. Even as an ICJ major for 4 years, we are never required to learn about the United States' criminal justice system, but we do learn about the systems in other countries.
Social media might be a good tool for education, but I wonder how hard would it be to learn about the system through facebook or twitter. Aside from the problem of information manipulation, I think that most people aren't interested in reading into how our justice system works. I'm not sure whether I am correct in saying this, but I would think that the majority of our nation don't get in contact with the criminal justice system enough to care about what happens. Even if people spread information about the system around, it would probably change by the time a lot of people find the information. Furthermore, the end goal is to find a way to prevent prosecutors from getting away with what they do. If I only think about how to reach that goal as fast as possible, I will have to agree with Mr. Giovanni and hope that they change the law so that prosecutors can be punished properly if they tamper with evidence. I have played a video game where you're a defense attorney, but the protagonist becomes disbarred after 1 case of evidence tampering (which was staged), so I thought the punishment was more common than it is.
As for Trayvon's case, I think all of the blood is on the hands of Zimmerman. The police failed to properly check up on Zimmerman afterwards, but they couldn't have done anything else to prevent the shooting. Just because we expect the police to arrive immediately doesn't mean it's possible. I won't argue whether or not Trayvon's case and the other one should have gotten similar media attention on the standards of race, because I don't think I can make that argument. However, I am glad that Trayvon's case is getting more attention, because there's still issues with the case that could be resolved and should have been resolved (I don't think Zimmerman shot Trayvon out of self defense).
By the way, this has been on my mind since the day of the talk. Superman has another vulnerable point to him; magic.
Thank you for the contribution on this week’s post. Social media is powerful but as Professor Reitz not with unlimited power or in my view not enough to shed light on the abuses of the police or prosecutorial system. Although in theory social media could be the kryptonite/magic (as Simon pointed out) to prosecutorial/police abuses it fails to stop or the trend. Although the story of Trayvon Martin is incredibly sad on all levels I think many people fail to realize that this is not an isolated incident. Not to say that Martin’s case doesn’t deserve all the attention it is currently receiving, but there are many other similar cases which don’t get nearly the attention it deserves. This is something that happens every day in many black urban communities. Many different groups constantly face persecution when they arrive into this country it is simply fear and lack of understanding of the other. But what is it about certain minority groups that make police officers want to react with so much anger and brutality. And what causes prosecutors or legislators to form laws or invoke “justice” the way they see fit which is at times unfair and possibly destructive.
FROM THOMAS GIOVANNI:
Hey Vera Scholars
There's so much richness in you all's discussions: I wish I could be one of your teachers.
Thank you guys for the kind words. Mostly, thank you for continuing the discussion and continuing to think about the many issues you brought up.
Of all the various types of "Kryptonite" you've identified, no matter what your perspective or desired outcome, the common element for each Kryptonite is Thought. (any comic geeks want to talk about Green, Red, Blue or Gold Kryponite? We could get silly with this analogy..)
I say this in a non-pejorative way: most of the misperceptions we revealed about the system existed simply because you hadn't really thought about the question, and you had been subtly lied to about some of the background "facts," such as the extent and meaning of Constitutional protections you kinda assumed you had. And like being indicted (not necessarily tried, although that can happen also) without any notice. Nobody really told you that you were as helpless as you are, but your past teachers and elders (many of whom labored under the same misperceptions you had) said a lot to make you think you were covered under this general Constitutional/American Fair Play umbrella.
To be continued...
More from Thomas Giovanni...
AND OF COURSE, I will take issue, as she knows I would, with Ruby's point that most people ACTUALLY committed their crimes. Most people you hear who work in the criminal justice system--left and right--will say that, or at least concede it, but there is nothing objective to back that assumption up, not within the criminal justice system itself. Whatever idea we may have about the actual facts, our criminal justice system doesn't give us any objective basis to believe that factual guilt or innocence are important factors in what happens in court. I'm not saying that any percentage of people did or didn't actually commit their charged crimes: I'm asking you How Do You Know? Because an officer wrote it down? A prosecutor wrote down what the officer wrote? Someone was a witness in court? A person took a plea? An appellate court decision? I have yet to meet anyone who--looking at the criminal justice system, from police to Supreme Court appeals, can tell me why, in the vast vast majority of cases, they can think our system is fact-driven. They all end up relying solely on the integrity of the police and prosecutors. But as we've seen, there's no meaningful check on them. Hence Tulia, Texas, Hearn Texas, the Duke Rape case (I don't forget the proportionately few--but still nearly 1/2 of the prison population--White people victimized) Ramarley Graham, Sean Bell etc. ...all the way to Trayvon (that's at the police level of misconduct so far. Imagine a black teen standing over a white man, talking about "he was beating me up, so I shot him" and then going home, with his gun. Stop trying to imagine it: you'll just hurt yourself.)
And BTW, murders of White people do get a lot of attention generally. In fact, they make change, not just noise. California's Three Strikes Laws were passed directly because of the murders of two White children. It's an "Amber" Alert, not "Shaquana" Alert. Megan's Law. Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Remember when Susan Smith said some black guys took her kids? National manhunt. Full-on media coverage. Turns out, she did it. John Thompson, and many of the other death row exonorees were railroaded because they were accused of victimizing White people. Natalee Holloway.
My point was, none of our criminal justice systems (policing/prosecution/defense/sentencing) are based upon, or often even friendly to, genuine fact-finding. Until we prioritize fact-finding, serious investigation, and put in place SOMETHING to weed out the bad/corrupt apples, we can't know what's really real. We only guess. And when America guesses, as our history attests, we usually guess negatively about power minorities (this term includes women, who are a numerical majority), and as history also shows, we most often guess wrong.
TO BE CONTINUED...
MORE FROM THOMAS GIOVANNI...
Understand this about The Most of Them Did It Argument: even if there is only a 1 percent rate of "error" for our system, that's about 21,000 innocent people (out of 2.1 million) in prison in the U.S. right now. If you apply that rate to all cases--not just prisoners--this year (about 7 million), that's 70,000 people wrongfully arrested, placed in cages and processed nationally. I do not believe that's the best we can do, and I can't take comfort in thinking that we can't do better because the vast majority of the accused are guilty. Even if they are, we have to do more than pay lip service to weeding out the innocent from the guilty. What about the "safety" of the innocent? Why are they our sacrificial lambs? Why should they pay individually for the resources and systemic protections--choices--we're collectively unwilling to pay for (more oversight, more prosecutors, more judges, more levels of review), but kick and scream about the need for justice only when it's us or our loved ones victimized?
There's an expression that has totally fallen out of favor now: "Better that a 1000 guilty men go free than that 1 innocent man is imprisoned." We used to be THAT nation (at least that's what we pretended to be.) It's a value statement, and a statement of what social costs we are all willing to pay to protect the innocent. Now, the reality is that we're willing to let some decent-sized number of (black, brown and poor) innocent people live and die in cages, just to keep us "safe" from those (violent) masses of criminals. It's actually a largely false choice, given the true incidence of violent crime, and the criminal justice system's marginal effect on behavior (Zimring's analysis of NYC suggests otherwise, but I'm not convinced yet).
TO BE CONTINUED...
MORE FROM THOMAS GIOVANNI...
I'll end with a mashup of the comic book geek and lawyer in me:
Simon's right that Superman's other major weakness is magic. Fundamentally, much "magic" is the ability of a special class of people to use words to shape reality, often by giving or revealing the true names of things. All of us in the policy world do exactly that: name things in order to re-shape reality. We identify situations, and if we can cast them in the right terms (cast the spell), often with words, such as as "unjust" "unfair" or "wasteful" reality is re-shaped. All of a sudden, you can't execute the mentally infirm; once a woman is "human," and not property, she can vote; same with African Americans; same with LGBTQ issues. The spell cast over all of us determines much of our reality. If Trayvon is a thug/attacker, then Zimmerman is not. Right now, what you're seeing is a battle of the Public Magicians of the Left and Right, as they battle to place their respective spells over the situation: "gun-toting, racist nut, assisted by violence-happy, gun-loving state laws and racist police dept." versus "2nd amendment-protected citizen violently attacked by young thug." Facts matter, but it's all about whose facts and when they come into the analysis.
Now, there's good magic and bad: think of how once we cast the spell of "terrorist" over someone, anything can be done to them. "Victim" "Patriot" "Criminal" can all be seen as spells cast by advocates, politicians or media, enthralling or anesthetizing the masses.
For example: Trayvon was murdered. Whether he had no school suspension record or 20 of them for bringing guns to school, he had skittles on him the day he was stalked and shot. There's no argument that his conduct THAT DAY was anything less than completely innocent until Zimmerman wrongfully stalked and harassed him. The media's use of the sweetest picture of Trayvon is part of the totems we magicians use. But regardless, Zimmerman didn't shoot Trayvon based on his school record, or his Facebook postings.
So Simon's right that there is another way out there for you to move the public perceptions on issues, to offset out-of-control power, and ultimately to make change--Sorcery.
So keep Thinking. Keep learning the true names of things. Then be the Wizards Profs. Reitz and Stein have you training at Hogwart's Interdisciplinary Justice Magi Program to become.
See you next year..
Thomas,
I think I can speak for all the Verons and Professors when I say that we would gladly welcome you as one of our teachers. You would definitely bring another perspective and a flavor to the already diversed cluster of thoughts within the 2011-2012 John Jay-Vera Fellows family. Several statements you've made will stick with me. Here's just two: "It's an "Amber" Alert, not "Shaquana" Alert(which happens to be the name of the young lady that lives a few houses down from me)." The other: "...Zimmerman didn't shoot Trayvon base on his school record, or his Facebook postings."
Well said!
Thomas couldn't have provided us with a richer class, a more fitting discussion of the shaping power of language (Grendel meets Orwell) on the blog -- and a better compliment to me, a woman whose highest aspiration is to teach at Hogwart's. Not only should y'all read his comments here, you should re-read them. They are full of truth, but also of fantastic writing -- sharp, argumentative, persuasive. Thomas is definitely a wizard, the only question that remains is: Gryffindor or Ravenclaw?
Post a Comment