CHAPTER 1
"Why the words, 'JUSTICE FOR ALL'?"
I began my teaching career in 1959 teaching Social Studies and English for grades seven through nine in a Junior High School. Our daily school ritual back then is still followed by many public schools today. Our local Fox 45 TV station, WRGT 45, airs each day in its morning TV News a tape of a specific class saying their Pledge of Allegiance.
"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, Indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for All."
The fundamental question for each one of us boils down to: "What IS Justice for All?" Do we really believe that it is such a basic and essential commitment of our own society? The word, 'all', means every one of us including those who have been convicted of some crime and then incarcerated. This group of inmates has grown to huge numbers over the past few decades. The implication of that figure is taken from a short article in the November 2, 2015 issue of the Christian Science Monitor which described this numbers issue as follows:
"The United States is the world's leading incarcerator; it has less than five percent of the world's population but a quarter of the world's prisoners. Prisons cost states more than $50 billion a year and are second fastest-growing part of state budgets behind Medicaid."
Yet though these citizens may be in jail or prison or out on probation, they are still very much a part of the ALL. This book will be looking at the key question from a variety of perspectives. Some have been the victims of crimes, some have committed crimes, some have worked to bring them to justice, and others have worked to help those who served their time to make a successful re-entry into society. I hope to use my own several life experiences in and among these various groups to assist readers to consider the many aspects of our System and the many efforts to provide a 'YES' answer to the basic question, "Is our System of Justice really for ALL?"
I finished my two graduate degrees (1962 and 1967) and became an Education professor with specialties in K-12 Social Studies curriculum. Those degrees included graduate work in History, Geography, Economics and English. Given this academic focus along with the importance of a solid school curriculum and experiences for children from 5 to 19 years of age, my attention to the continuing school routine of reciting the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America has now 'raised several flags' in my mind.
When reading (and saying) the Pledge, I must ask you to be alert to the use (and non-use) of the comma! You will please note that there is NO comma after the word "nation" BUT orally we add a comma at that spot when we recite the Pledge. OK---I am a purist but I did teach English for six years before moving on to 'professing' in higher education.
Justice for All
Because the Pledge puts that societal goal as the final message point, this book will explore our nation's System of Justice as it exists at the most local level via mayor's courts, law enforcement systems from Barney Fife in Mayberry to Federal Marshalls and the FBI at the national level. Judges who are elected (or not), Prosecutors who also must be elected, and public defense attorneys who must please those who appoint them are all subject to the whims and human weaknesses of those who elect or appoint these essential elements of the system.
At one time there was the oft-stated goal of rehabilitation as the purpose of our Justice System. We wanted that those convicted could be re-affiliated into society in a productive contributing way. Has this positive effort been replaced by a growing philosophy of punishing as the prime goal? For too many inmates their long-delayed return (if ever) into society is with no real rehabilitation ever having been made available!
Our daily news brings us vivid evidence of illegal convictions of people who are just now being freed with their convictions overturned. After decades of illegal actions by the system's officials which have deprived them of their freedom, they now are back in society with us. Taxpayers are now having to have their governments pay out millions of dollars as punishments of the system's malpractices via the courts, the prisons, and/or the medical services provided or denied to those incarcerated. Not only are there major emotional and/ or financial costs to the humans so injured, but also real tax costs out of our collective tax pockets as the System is having now to pay reparations for the misdeeds!
One more brief example of an all too common "judicial malpractice" concerns the very basic tenet of our court system---trial by a jury of peers! Peers is commonly defined as people like the defendant. Bryan Stevenson's 2014 book, JUST MERCY, points out that the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly found the System to be failing to provide a jury of peers with even a slight representation of African Americans. In the 1880's Stauder v WV. decision the Court said this lack was outside the Constitution and thus OK. But in 1986, Batson v Ky,the Court ruled such lack of peers on juries was unconstitutional. Once again but much more recently in Foster v Ga, the Court by a 7-1 vote on May 23, 2016 ruled that systematically removing peers from a jury IS ALSO UNCONSTITUTIONAL! Justice for All remains a goal which has been much too frequently ignored by the System in many parts of our country!
As we have our children pledge their allegiance to a system of JUSTICE FOR ALL, what will be their confidence in that flag and what it says but is not followed in practice? Will they be encouraged to trust the judicial system? Will they look for ways to scam the system? Will they retreat and isolate themselves in their school work, their lives, and their adult actions on behalf of our nation and society? Or will the current efforts to reform the system be seen to be appropriate and of significant benefit to us all?
There have been many cases of malpractice within the justice system by all levels of it prior to the actual trial and sentencing. This includes cases of local officers turning themselves into prosecutor-judge-jury and executioner as they put many bullets into an unarmed person or a choke-hold to death on a man who was selling untaxed cigarettes.
Prosecutors have been found guilty of withholding key evidence from the defense, of...
