Over the past year or so I've been working in the Duke Wrongful Convictions Clinic, aiming to find relief for people who have been convicted for crimes they did not commit. In my time working here, it has become obvious to me that the US way of administering "justice" is deeply wrong. There is an illness in our justice system that I am convinced will only get worse unless and until we take drastic action to fix it, and more crucially, to fix ourselves, our attitudes, and our beliefs about the cause of Justice.
There are two common threads in all of the cases I've worked on in my time at the clinic. First, not one of our clients were guilty of the crimes they were convicted for. There is absolutely no way that any of them should have been convicted for anything under any semi-reasonable standard for evidence, much less the proof beyond a reasonable doubt that we supposedly require. There are a number of reasons for why people are convicted when they really shouldn't have, but I'm only going to discuss one general reason here, which is commonality two; every single one of my cases had incredibly corrupt State actors, whether it be the police, the prosecutors, or sometimes both.
I can't go into specifics here, and the details aren't important for what I'm writing. For those who are curious, I highly recommend googling the Kalvin Michael Smith case for an example, or even better, checking out "Convicting the Innocent" by Brandon L. Garrett for a more in-depth treatment of the matter. Suffice it to say that the examples of egregious misconduct, corruption, and outright lies I've witnessed on the part of State actors are far from atypical. There is simply no getting around it; far too many police officers and prosecutors do what they can to get convictions, whether or not the people they go after are actually guilty. Please note that I accept that not all police and not all prosecutors are corrupt, but that's really besides the point here, namely, that there is a very disturbing pattern of such behavior throughout the United States.
Why is this allowed to happen? There are many reasons, but one of the most important ones is the attitude we as a people have towards crime and criminal defendants. All too often, criminal defendants are presumed guilty long before they're ever convicted, and the people eagerly call for a metaphorical lynching. We continue to award people who will be "tough on crime," and disparage those who feel that perhaps that focus has gone too far. In short, we value "getting the bad guy" above the rights and liberties we value for ourselves but not for those awful "bad guys."
We cannot sit by and condone prosecutors that are greedy for the fame and reputation inherent in being "tough on crime," who then feed that greed to get convictions at any cost. Yet we as a people continue to insist that being "tough on crime" is necessary, and that we always need to get "the bad guy." How many police shows exist where the "good guys" bend the rules (or often outright break them) to get the "bad guys," because if we pay too much attention to pesky, annoying restrictions like due process or the right against unreasonable searches and seizures, we may let bad guys go, and there's nothing worse than that, right??? I very much doubt we'd be so supportive of this behavior if we were on the receiving end of a "good guy's" attention.
There are much, much more important things at stake here than always getting the bad guy. When we focus too much on that as a culture, we enable corrupt actors and even encourage others to go the same way, all at the expense of the rights and liberties we supposedly hold dear. We're seeing the results of that attitude today with an unacceptably high number of wrongful convictions (and those are just the ones we know about - there are surely many more that we are completely unaware of). The justice system is deeply ill, and our culture is the one poisoning it. If we don't change, I fear for our future as a people, and I fear for those who will continue to be convicted for crimes they didn't commit.
I will continue to do what I can to make a difference. I implore each of you to do the same. Until then, I will continue to mourn for those who have been unjustly robbed of their lives and liberties, as well as their equally innocent families who suffer in just the same way.
