Justice may be blind, but that doesn't remove bias

Printable Version | [eMail this article!] |

With the conflagration in Iraq, the release of Woodwards "Plan of Attack," and the 9-11 Commission hearings, an important story has slipped under the radar - Study Suspects Thousands of False Convictions, 4/19/04.

The study was done by the University of Michigan under the direction of law professor Samuel Gross. They examined 328 criminal cases from the last 15 years in which the convicted person was later exonerated (found innocent and released). Of the cases examined, 199 were murder cases (with 73 of those being capital cases), and 120 were rape convictions. While exonerations mirrored the demographics of the prison population, African American men were over-represented in rape exonerations - while Black men represented 29% of the rape convictions, they had 65% of the exonerations for rape.

Interracial rapes are, moreover, uncommon. Rapes of white women by black men, for instance, represent less than 10 percent of all rapes, according to the Justice Department. But in half of the rape exonerations where racial data was available, black men were falsely convicted of raping white women.

While active racism seems likely from these findings, the the report argued that "White Americans are much more likely to mistake one black person for another than to do the same for members of their own race." While this too reflects racism, it seems to me that the racism is beyond "they all look alike."

"On the other hand, the study found that the leading causes of wrongful convictions for murder were false confessions and perjury by co- defendants, informants, police officers or forensic scientists."

Murder cases, particularly capital cases, are high profile with a lot of pressure to find the perpetrator and close the case. Apparently, the fact that convicting the wrong person does absolutely nothing to make the community any safer runs far behind the pressure to "succeed" (or appear to).

The study argued that if they had looked at a representative sampling of cases rather than focusing on murder and rape, they likely would have found 28,500 "non-death row" cases of erroneous convictions.

A critic of the study stated:

We all agree that it is better for 10 guilty men to go free than for one innocent man to be convicted," Mr. Marquis said. "Is it better for 100,000 guilty men to walk free rather than have one innocent man convicted? The cost-benefit policy answer is no."

In essence he is arguing that it is less costly to lock up and even kill innocent people. He is arguing that there are really very few false imprisonments, and this doesn't seem to be the case - particularly in the most egregious cases. Is it really more "cost effective? It seems to me that when an innocent person is convicted, imprisoned, and even given the death sentence that the society pays multiple costs. One is the cost we can count - how much does it cost to convict, imprison, and sometimes kill, an innocent person? Second, harder to calculate, is the cost of having the actual perpetrator is still on the street - possibly committing additional crimes. Third is the cost to the family and community of losing a productive member. Fourth is the cost of the individual trapped in this situation and his/her children if they have any. Last, but not least is the cost (ethereal as it may seem) to our society and democracy, to our ideals and our trust in the fairness of the system.

So how much (minimum) did it cost to hold the 328 exonerated individuals (more than half of them who had been imprison for more than 10 years? Well if you take 328 people at a minimum cost of $30,000 a year for 10 years, it cost society $9.84 Million dollars. If you take the estimated 28,500 "run-of-the-mill" innocents, that cost could be $1.71 Million (assuming an average 2 year sentence). So much for cost effectiveness.

There is a pervasive belief that if one is imprisoned then they are guilty. There is a pervasive belief that removing "criminals" from free society makes for a safer society. The first belief is wrong and the second one gives a false sense of security. Both of them contribute to supporting a system that is blatantly biased and all too frequently wrong. The report did not state whether social class was also examined. It is unquestioned that racism is a problem in the "justice" system, but lack of economic resources is the cross-racial component that is most prevalent. The less money one has the deeper one penetrates into the system and the longer one's sentence is likely to be.

Are these costs that we can continue to bear? On all levels, I think not.

Permanent link at Uncommon Thought for the referenced article

Posted by rowan at April 22, 2004 09:09 PM | TrackBack | Printable Version | [eMail this article!] |