Innocent Until Executed

Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have said that he would rather see one hundred guilty men go free than one innocent man suffer punishment. While I’m not quite sure that I would rather have one hundred serial killers roaming the streets than one innocent man behind bar, I can say for certain that I would rather have one hundred people convicted of first degree murder serving life sentences without the possibility of parole than one innocent man executed for a crime he didn’t commit. But what are the chances of that happening to someone today?

After reading The Innocent Man, by John Grisham, my first thoughts were “Of course these men are innocent. How did these juries not see through the lies that put forward by the prosecutors, who were obviously just desperate for a conviction?” However, the jury did not get all of the information in the book. The information juries hear is finely filtered through the evidence that is allowed to be presented, the questions the can be asked of witnesses, and the objections that can be raised. Juries are, at least in theory, a group of our peers, people with no special training in criminology, evidence, or courtroom procedure. Even those jurors who have some outside knowledge are not allowed to inquire on their own about the evidence. While a fictional tale, Twelve Angry Men presents a case in which a defendant with incompetent counsel appears guilty from the courtroom proceedings but, through the determination and expert knowledge of the jurors, is eventually found innocent. Though they were able to use their own knowledge and review exhibits entered into evidence, they could not ask for anything not entered that they felt might be relevant and could not request additional witnesses who were not called much less recall witnesses to ask them their own questions.

I am generally optimistic about others’, especially those in positions of power, ability to do the right thing, but that optimism could blind me to their abuses of power. While the implications for the defendant are deadlier than those harmed in other professions, in truth, prosecutors who continue to waste effort to prove a suspect guilty simply because they have nowhere else to turn, have invested too much time into the lead to admit it was incorrect, or even feel pressure to convict someone – anyone, even – to close the wounds for the victim or the victim’s family, are no different than the marketing executive who doubles the ad budget of an ineffective campaign, the general manager of a sports team who refuses to cut a free agent he brought in because he’s just going through a two-year long cold streak, or the lottery player who continues to buy tickets because tomorrow will be the day his luck changes. Almost everyone has, intentionally or unintentionally, overcommitted resources to a failing project. Would I like to think that if I were the prosecutor, I would have stopped the questionable investigations long before the reached the courtroom much less the guilty verdict. Certainly. But do I also understand how various pressures inherent in our judicial system make this possible? I’d have to be blind not to.

Under our laws, most people involved in criminal proceedings – including judges, prosecutors, and juries – cannot be held liable for convicting an innocent person unless they have made an egregious violation. All people, even those with the best intentions, will make mistakes. In the adversarial system we use, fairness depends on two equal sides both seeking to prevail. While in theory they both want the truth, they also are enlisted to fight for their client. In the same way even the best referee cannot cause a game between the L.A. Lakers and a middle school AAU team to be equal, the most well-versed judge cannot make up for an incompetent attorney. A jury cannot possibly be expected to have the knowledge required to determine whether “expert” witnesses are to be believed. Even a well-intentioned prosecutor can proceed with cases that indict innocent people. To allow the prosecutor to be punished for proceeding with good intentions would cripple the legal system.

Some argue that the death penalty should be abolished because it is unjust in that it is imposed on certain demographics – most often the poor or minorities – a disproportionate amount. While I agree with the ends of their argument, the means ring hollow because it confuses justice with equality. While often linked, justice and equality are not interchangeable words. Whether a punishment is just or not should be determined by comparing the crime committed and the circumstances it was committed under, with the punishment given. Only when considering whether it is equal should the punishments of others be considered. When equality becomes the determining factor of whether a punishment is “right” or “wrong,” justice becomes a sliding scale with no anchor because as simple as it would be to make all first degree murders receive life in prison without parole, it would be equally simple to assign any other punishment – whether it be the death penalty or fifty hours of community service – and as long as all convicts received that same punishment, the punishment would be equal. And fifty hours of community service for murder is clearly unjust.

Since the system is known to be imperfect, death penalty cases are automatically appealed, as they should be. When a person’s life hangs in the balance, every effort should be made to ensure the correct decision is made. However, this takes significant sums of money. Studies have found New York spends about twenty-three million for each execution actually carried out and in Maryland the figure jumps to thirty-seven million (See http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty for full stories and more.) Surely our government has been things to spend its money on than giving prosecutors the option to seek the death penalty. Governments estimate future prison construction based in part on illiteracy rates of elementary-aged children. What better use for those funds than to help those kids struggling so they don’t end up behind bars?

While I still think death can potentially be a just punishment for certain crimes, I do not have enough trust in the criminal justice system to administer it fairly and properly. The finality of the punishment prevents any correction of errors, and who among us is perfect?