Critical Analysis #1: The legitimacy of a broken Criminal Justice System

Anonymous Lim
2016년 2월 14일
6분 분량

Today I came upon an interesting article about the current status of the criminal justice system of the US. The link's here: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/13/opinion/prisoners-exonerated-prosecutors-exposed.html?ref=opinion

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Prisoners Exonerated, Prosecutors Exposed

In 2015, 149 people convicted of crimes large and small — from capital murder to burglary — were exonerated. It is the highest yearly total since this grim form of record-keeping began, in 1989.

In that time, there have been at least 1,733 exonerations across the country, and the pace keeps picking up. On average, about three convicted people are now exonerated of their crimes every week, according to the annual report of the National Registry of Exonerations. The registry defines an exoneration as a case in which someone convicted of a crime is cleared of all charges based on new evidence of innocence.

The individual cost to those wrongly convicted is steep: Last year’s group spent an average of more than 14 years behind bars. Five had been sentenced to death. Amazingly, half of the exonerations involved cases in which no crime occurred at all — for example, a conviction of murder by arson that later turned out to be based on faulty fire science.(WTF)

Equally eye-opening is the list of reasons behind these miscarriages of justice. For instance, 27 of last year’s exonerations were for convictions based on a false confession. This happened most often in homicide cases in which the defendant was a juvenile, intellectually disabled, mentally ill or some combination of the three. In nearly half of all 2015 exonerations, the defendant pleaded guilty before trial.

These numbers are a bracing reminder that admissions of guilt are unreliable far more often than is generally believed. Some defendants, especially the young or mentally impaired, can be pushed to admit guilt when they are innocent. Some with prior criminal records may not be able to afford bail but don’t want to spend months in pretrial detention or risk a much longer sentence if they choose to go to trial.

Official misconduct — including perjury, withholding of exculpatory evidence and coercive interrogation practices — occurred in three of every four exonerations involving homicide, and it was an important factor in many other cases as well.

As high as these exoneration numbers are, they still understate the scope of the problem, since not all cases involving misconduct come to light.(Tip of the iceberg..)

The good news is that Americans are starting to grasp the depth of the problem. The Innocence Project, now more than 20 years old, has shown again and again how many ways a conviction can be obtained wrongfully. And in-depth investigations of questionable murder convictions by popular shows like “Serial” and “Making a Murderer” have led to calls for greater prosecutorial accountability. (Thank God)

As technologies like DNA testing have become more widely used, some prosecutors’ offices have begun to take responsibility for correcting their own errors. In the last seven years, almost two dozen offices in 11 states and the District of Columbia have opened conviction-integrity units to re-examine old cases. But the units vary widely in effectiveness. Half have never exonerated anyone, while two, in Brooklyn and in Harris County, Tex., were responsible for one-third of last year’s exonerations.

It is good to see any degree of self-reflection and accountability from prosecutors, who wield enormous and often unreviewed power in the criminal justice system. It would be even better for them to put in place safeguards that would prevent wrongful convictions in the first place.

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So basically innocent people are going to jail because they are poor and powerless in front of the judiciary system. Reading this article, I'm really dubious about the claim stated in the White House homepage.

"Article III of the Constitution of the United States guarantees that every person accused of wrongdoing has the right to a fair trial before a competent judge and a jury of one's peers."

Hmmm... Article 10 of Universal Declaration of Human RIghts dictates that “everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and publichearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determinationof his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.” The Human Rights Committee of the United Nations (UNHRC) has also evoked the right to counsel(right to a lawyer, legal assistance), and instituted the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and international bodies to protect this right. If the international community has consensus that right to counsel is an important human right, and international law requires nations to guarantee this right why aren't things going well for the US right now?

Alot of things can be said as causes, or reasons, but I'll focus on these 4.

1) right of counsel in some cases vs right of counsel in all cases (including civil)

2) broken down public defense system

3) too much power of the prosecutors

4) systemic problems in law itself

1) Now we know that right of counsel is a essential thing. But things change by how you define and limit the right itself. For example, Singapore doesn't provide legal assistance(counsel) in criminal cases except for cases related to the death penalty. On the other hand, US law requires the state to provide legal assistance in only criminal cases. Yet, both Singapore and the United States can be said to provide the right of counsel. International law isn't such a great supporter because currently no treaty, convention stipulates that states have the obligation to provide right of counsel in civil cases. International Court of Justice (ICJ) verdicts such as Currie v. Jamaica, Avellanal v. Peru, etc don't explicitly call for the right of counsel in civil cases, yet imply that legal counsel is necessary for a just proceeding in civil cases. So its a grey area.

2) This video is self-explanatory.

Conclusion: Poor public defenders. The poor not poor enough to be elligable for legal aid = F***ed up status quo.

3) The economist has a great article on this 3rd issue (its in the link below) Check out this amazing story.

The snitch who sent him to his death had been told that robbery charges pending against him would be reduced to a lesser offence if he co-operated. After the trial the prosecutor denied that any such deal had been struck, but a handwritten note discovered last year by the Innocence Project, a pressure group, suggests otherwise. In taped interviews, extracts of which were published by the Washington Post, the informant said he lied in court in return for efforts by the prosecutor to secure a reduced sentence(WTF) and—amazingly—financial support from a local rancher.

Attorney General of the Supreme Court, Robert Jackson, once said that “the prosecutor has more control over life, liberty and reputation than any other person in America." Thats right. Prosecutors have become ever more powerful because of legal changes. According to the Economist the main reason is the prevalence of plea bargaining, where a suspect agrees to plead guilty to a lesser charge if the more serious charges against him are dropped. Originally, Plea bargains were unobtainable in early American history. But today more than 95% of cases end in such deals and thus are never brought to trial. So an innocent person charged for crime would find it less costly to finish a case with a plea bargin rather than fighting for his rights. The prosecutor with an incentive to finish quick and get money would press the victim to agree for plea bargaining.

Mandatory Mimimum. This video is also self explanatory. The story at 9:30 brought me to tears.

[Ending Remarks]

The pillars of the criminal justice system are 1) punishment 2) retributive justice 3) protection 4) rehabilitation. The Criminal Justice System is fundamentally a balance of these 4 principles. But keep in mind, internal factors such as budget, systemic problems, flaws within law itself, lack of coordination between legal systems, etc factor in to make this a complicated issue on a whole new level. What extent should right of counsel be applied? Why is public defense so important? How do we balance cost of maintaining a public defense office system and without compromsing effeciacy of judiciary to deal with its immense court cases? How do we strike balance between rehabilitation and punishment? Hope this article makes you think deeply about these questions.

<Links>

http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21621799-how-prosecutors-came-dominate-criminal-justice-system-kings-courtroom

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/13/opinion/prisoners-exonerated-prosecutors-exposed.html?ref=opinion