Prosecuting attorneys stake their jobs, their reputation, and their chance of promotion, on doggedly going after defendants. Pursuing them with everything they have, ignoring -any- and all feelings of doubt about the guilt of the suspect, and presenting only information tailored to putting them away. This is their job. Its a nasty one, but it is the only reason our justice system comes even -close- to functioning. There are many times when this goes awry. It results in racist and classist issues. It results in innocent people going away, or even being executed. It has resulted in prosecutors -intentionally- holding back evidence that -proved- the innocence of the suspect, failing to hand that over to the defense, which cost one man 10 years of his life rotting away in prison. And a judge ruled that was no wrong-doing. Its not an ideal system, by any stretch of the imagination. But what makes it go from bad to -horrific- is that they sometimes -stop- doing this job when it comes to certain people. Often completely. There are numerous different iterations of this. Obviously the rich and powerful, the influential, get a kind of special treatment at times that lets them get away with murder. Sometimes literally. Often though its just little things that you or I would be punished for, that more marginalized people would greatly suffer for, that they either get away with or walk away with a slap on the wrist. This is a built in issue with a position that is by turns appointed from above or elected in an electoral system that systematically fails to approach democracy. But I can think of few more odious aspects of this than the degree to which they drop their job when it comes to potential police wrong-doing. Heres the thing: It doesnt matter if the cop is innocent. It doesnt matter if what they did was justified. That is not a thing for the prosecutor to decide. That Is Not Their Job. Their job is to act in every way as if the suspect is Guilty, and proceed to do everything in their power to prove that. Presenting evidence for the defense is the job of the defense. Deciding guilt is the job of the court, and a Trial(not a Grand Jury indictment hearing). When they fail to do this, as they seem to almost ubiquitously do, justice is not served. It Cannot be served. Because of the way the system is set up, if the prosecutor decides you are innocent, and acts accordingly, you will go free. Period. They become a one person judge and jury. This is why you cannot look to the cases of the killing of Brown, or Rice, or Garner, or Crawford, or any others in an endless list of names of the dead and say that justice was served because a jury said so. A jury responds to the evidence brought, and if the prosecutor fails to bring evidence against the defense, then the court hearing is a sham. A mockery of an already broken system. There are no easy answers here. One thing that -has- been made clear by Garners case though, more cameras arent going to fix the problem.
Posted on: Thu, 04 Dec 2014 07:15:25 +0000
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