Freedom And Justice

Freedom and Justice are inseperable. Once you have been denied justice, you will never be free again.

I would like to ask every one of you reading this a question.

If congress decided to change the name of the United States of America, what would you be then?

Would you still be Americans? Or would American be part of a lost identity?

Yes, I know it is only a hypothetical question. I doubt that congress will decide to change the name.

But suppose they did, would our constitution still have any force and effect? Since it is the constitution of the United States of America? Would it not have to be re-written?

What civil rights do you suppose we would retain in the new constitution?

Do you think that the freedoms of speech, right to be free from unreasonable search, due process, the right to bear arms, freedom of religion would survive the re-write?

How protected are those rights right now? Well lets see,

There were 6 exonerations in 2004."  http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=412&scid=6

According to the Death Penalty Information Center there have been 123 exonerations since 1973. At the time of that report 33 years had passed and in only 33 years 127 people who were unjustly convicted and placed on death row were exonerated.

Please bear in mind that Death Row Cases are among the most high profile of all cases.

Death Row cases receive more media attention that almost any other cases.

Now suppose what would have happened if there were no attention being paid to those cases.

How many people do you suppose have not been exonerated simply because there was no DNA evidence at the scene of the crime? How man people may have been convicted without any physical evidence linking them to the crime?

It is obvious that in the case of the 123 people who were exonerated, that there was no physical evidence or evidence of any kind linking them to the crime. How then were they convicted? How can innocent people be convicted of crimes in America?

The obvious answer is very poor investigative practices. In too many cases efforts are focused on someone an investigator believes to be the perpetrator of a crime to the point that no other suspect is even considered. Is this due process of law? Remember, due process does not start in the court room. It starts with the very first moment of an investigation.

It would seem that the motivations of some are not justice, but revenge. Revenge against any one, who is not important.

So then, what about the rights of those who were exonerated ? Do we just say," We are sorry that we threw you into prison and placed you on death Row. Get over it?"

We are motivated by fear that is generated by a feeding frenzy by the media. A media which makes up reports and research that never even occurred. Sensationalism! Why ? Because it sells news.

But, we are not without guilt, we are the ones buying that feeding frenzy. We try people and put them on trial in the media before they ever even get to court.

The most frightening part is that 99.0 % of the people in this country have no clue what the constitution really says. 95.0 % don't really care what it says as long as their rights are not violated.

Politicians vie for which rights they will take next. Rather than improving investigative abilities they tend to jump into the frenzy fire and care less than most of the people in America what the constitution say, or what is being stripped from it every single day.

We hear every day about victims rights. We also hear about the rights of criminals. The problem is few are saying anything about the rights of the accused.

If you think 123 people being exonerated of crimes they were convicted of is a small price to pay for justice, then you should volunteer to be one of those people who spend years on death row for something you did not do. After all, if there is a price to pay, shouldn't we all pay our fair share?

Too many people are willing for the price of freedom and justice to be paid as long as they are not the one doing the paying.

I have to wonder how many people charged of crimes on state and county level which do not draw the attention of high powered attorneys result in the convictions of people who did not commit a crime.

We can say that there are no statistics which would indicate that this ever occurs because of the lack of exonerations in those areas. However, there are some exonerations and only a few. But, the cases on this level has never been studied like those on death row. Which would seem to indicate that only those people on death row have enough client appeal to attract devoted attorneys.

Many of these lower level cases are handled by public defenders, who in most states are paid by the same state government that pays the prosecutors. The state is going to argue for and against the same charges? How just is that? How is that classified as freedom even in the wildest scope of anyone's imagination?

Now I have one last question for you. If these rights can be so blatantly violated in such high profile cases, then how many violations occur that we never even hear about?

One parting thought. When the accused no longer have rights, then anyone may be the accused.