Three cases suggest something is terribly wrong with our justice system. Actually, there are many things wrong with the way we mete out justice. Please allow just a word about “electing” judges. We do not elect doctors, lawyers or teachers. But, down here in Florida we elect judges and that raises suspicions about the law and justice – at least in my mind.
The big case that stresses many people in America is the way the Supreme Court entered THE political trial of this new century. It decided the election between George Bush and Al Gore. I remember that the Supreme Court intervened on the complaint that the Bush forces were not being dealt with “fairly.” That was wrong. In an intervention on behalf of one political party, the tallying of votes was not completed.
The case of Lionel Tate, here in Florida, is interesting. He was a large boy who thought for a moment he was a wrestler and jumped on a frail little girl who was available for him to live out his dream. The regret over his being given a life sentence is palpable among some Floridians and most of those who were the prosecution, the judge and the jurors. The elected lawyers (politicians) in Tallahassee placed them all in an impossible situation. Those “Solons” made the adult punishment too harsh and the juvenile system too soft. The twelve-year-old was sentenced as an adult to life in prison where as a juvenile he would have been out of prison by the age he is now, fifteen. No one defends this travesty. Yet, we elect judges based on their boasts in advertisements in billboards along the streets of Florida.
The last case that provokes comments in the newspapers is that about jurors who responded fearfully to what the Arab world would think if four men tried in the bombing of two American Embassies in East Africa were convicted. The distinctive thing about this case is the U.S. Government made the effort to try TERRORISTS before September 11, 2001 in civilian courts. The sense of justice in other parts of the world is colored by perceptions of the need for Americans to be punished by TERRORISTS doing the work of Allah. This causes fear in OUR justice system about what THEY think of us.
Our justice system is not a simple set of rules overseen by “Solons” or a “Solomon.” It is complicated because of realities of the global nature of our sense of the world. The materialism of the United States is grounded in our notion of private property and exaltation of individualism. Both of these collide with a heritage of real compassion, the so-called Judeo-Christian Western tradition. In other parts of the world, tribal responses to crimes of “passion” are fluffed off on the part of the outraged husband but betrayed women are stoned to death.
We still assign some convicted murderers to crisping to death in the “electric” chair. Some we give lethal injections in preference to gassing them in airtight chambers. Others are still hanged or shot by rifle squads (one state still allows this. Guess which one.) In other parts of the world, feuding families play out grudges by taking a life for a life. In parts of the Muslim world, if a hand offends it is cut off.
By global standards, we may not appear that bad but the cases cited here suggest we can do a lot better. I do not want under any circumstances to have to go to any court to defend myself against people I know and have come to fear. They live by a different set of rules. They take a life for an eye and punish forever for a slight they brought on themselves.