Years ago I became keenly interested in the death penalty cases and the abuses and oversights used to get our poorest citizens executed. We live in a society that does not value all it's citizens, nor does it treat it's citizens equally in the judicial system.
Recently I began reading The Innocent Man by John Grisham and this book has again sparked my interest in the inequities present in our justice system. This book points out blatant abuses, abuses that have destroyed one man in particular.
Before reading this book I didn't realize that the indigent really don't get fair trials. I knew that they sometimes got less than star representation, but I didn't realize how far the inequality went.
I learned in this book that indigent defendants are only allowed what defense the judge allows, not the same level of representation the state has in pursuing the prosecution of the accused. The state can have paid witnesses and experts, the defense can only have such things, if the court allows for it, which generally has a great deal to do with the economy in the area. So, in other words, the prosecution can bring on big legal experts on a very specialized science subject, but the defense very often is not allowed to use the state's money to find an expert of their own to help defend against the claims of the state.
All these things I find very disturbing and am going to research further.
I'm flabbergasted at the lackadaisical attitude so many court appointed defense attorneys face their clients needs with. I'm blown away that in capital murder cases, some of these defendants are not given access to the money nor the people necessary to defend themselves. That's not just not right, it's unAmerican.
Justice isn't served when people accused of crimes are not given the means to defend themselves.
The new Grisham book has inspired me to do some research on the subject and I found a few organizations dedicated to the rights of the accused. And in the face of our current "victim's rights" agenda regarding our justice system, I say...Thank the stars these organizations exist. Organizations such as The Innocence Project
The Fair Trial Initiative
and American Bar Association's Policies and Guidelines on Indigent Defense
and their August 2005 on needed reforms.
This is just one of the many issues I hope to explore in this blog. Feel free to inspire me with some suggestions or comments.
1 comment:
Those are excellent links. While I cannot, at this time, contribute monetarily, I will be writing to my ellected officials, both local and Federal. My suggestion to these organizations is that they spend more effort on informing the public about how horrid our justice system is, including out prison system. Most people simply aren't aware of these things.
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