Key West Lou

OUR LEGAL SYSTEM IS DISINTEGRATING

BY LOUIS PETRONE

In days gone by, the law could be depended upon to do the right thing. No more. As a result, people are losing faith in the legal system.

The legal system is like a dike. It can handle a leak. Cracks are another story. The leaks have turned into cracks and the walls are in danger of collapsing.

There are concrete examples.

First, there is Ferguson, Missouri. More than sixty days have gone by and still no grand jury report. Indictment or no indictment? A whole community awaits the decision. Protests continue. Confrontations between police and citizens commonplace.

Sixty days plus is totally unreasonable.

There is a gentleman living in St. Louis who reads my blog and listens to my blog talk radio show with a degree of frequency. Ferguson is a suburb of St. Louis. He e mailed me that the feeling in the St Louis area is that the grand jury will not indict the police officer. Ferguson not may, but will explode. The community could see itself burned to the ground.

The black people of Ferguson have a right to be upset. Justice delayed is justice denied. There is no reason the prosecutor could not have moved the process along. He is in total control. It is obvious he did not want to.

A crack in the dike.

Now comes Mississippi. A State not unaccustomed to illegalities. Lynchings, beatings, what have you. Mississippi justice never changes.The State is accustomed to doing things its way and continues to do so. Its way not necessarily the right way.

Don’t get arrested in Scott County, Mississippi.Once arrested you are tossed in jail and the key thrown away. The Scott County system is to immediately incarcerate a wrongdoer, never take the person before a judge, never provide a bail hearing, never provide counsel, and never have a trial.

I kid you not. Those arrested are kept in jail under such conditions for up to a year. At some point, a Scott County power to be decides the person has done enough time and sets the person free.

There is a Constitutional right to counsel, a speedy trial, and a fair bail hearing. Not in Scott County. Cases are frozen in what might be described as a legal black hole.

Another leak in the dike? Maybe a crack?

You would think that injustice as exists in Mississippi is common only to Mississippi. That such would never occur in the north. Wrong.

New York City is an example. Kalief Browder was arrested on March 15, 2010. He was walking home with a friend. They lived in the Bronx. A high crime area. A police car pulled up with a witness in the back seat saying that is him. The witness/victim claimed a back pack had been stolen. Browder denied the charge. He was 16 at the time.

Bail was set at $3,000. No way his Bronx based family could come up with that kind of money. He had a lawyer. He was frequently brought before a judge. Each time the prosecutor requested more time and the case was adjourned.

It was adjourned for almost 3 years. All this time Browder was in solitary confinement. Can you imagine!

Finally the prosecutor decided the witness’ credibility was suspect. Browder had been falsely accused. He dropped the charges.

There is a Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial. What happened to Browder’s speedy trial? More importantly, what were his attorney and the various judges doing who permitted these adjournments?

Seems Browder’s attorney did a lousy job. The judges, also. The criminal courts in New York City are crowded. Move the cases is the cry! One of the judges or judicial staff should have noticed how long Browder had been sitting around in solitary confinement with out a trial.

Then there is a prosecutor. Called District Attorney in New York. A prosecutor’s job is to do Justice. Not just try and convict. It is well recognized innocent people are arrested. Where was the prosecutor’s oversight which could have prevented this injustice?

I think the dike cracked here.

Continued next week.

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