I have written about this before. I have somewhat strong opinions about case law, the death penalty and the prison system. I will just go over them briefly:
1. Death penalty.
I believe the death penalty should be removed. I understand that man's law is not God's law, and that while God may forgive, man inflicts a different form of justice that takes the image of punishment. But worse there have been MANY CASES where convicted killers were later exonerated after serving time or even after having been executed for the crime. Truth. Look it up yourself. It makes me sick to think that so many people have been thrown in prison while being innocent, proclaiming their innocence, but having a prosecution take flimsy evidence and ramrod it down the throats of the jurors. Take the Ray Krone case as an example. Some people didn't like him, thought he was creepy. Stuff like that was allowed to taint the views of the jury. The EVIDENCE in the trial pointed to SOMEONE ELSE. Shoe prints did not match, fingerprints did not match, blood type "O", one of the most COMMON BLOOD TYPES, was INCONCLUSIVE, HAIRS ON THE BODY DID NOT MATCH Ray. Yet, because one man claimed to be an expert and said the bite mark was Ray's (very convincingly I guess) the jury convicted him. They then let that same expert SNOW them in the retrial. Finally the fingerprints, blood DNA, shoe size was matched to the ACTUAL killer 10 years later. They released Ray and he was awarded over $4 million in recompense. Nice, but... that should NEVER have happened in the first place. I apologize for all the caps, but this irritates me.
And this has happened over and over and over again. And in some cases, too late, AFTER the person has been executed. Imagine yourself, knowing your own innocence, no one believing you and the prosecutors painting you as an evil murder... and sitting in the electric chair or strapped to a table about to be killed but the very system that is supposed to be protecting you.
2. Case law.
Nope. Nope nope nope. Look, I get it. Our judicial system is outnumbered and overwhelmed by the number of criminal cases that need to be tried. And what are we to do? Keep potential perpetrators in prison while they wait for trial time? Risk them being out in the public for years before their trial, allowing them to commit other heinous acts?
But the problem is, citing a decision from a different case is (to me) very unreasonable. Every case is UNIQUE and should be tried on its own merits, or lack thereof. Every case should require all evidence analyzed, all stories heard, all angles viewed and each judge/jury should come to their own opinion and the sentence should be treated as some fresh revelation by the judge.
People are unique. Situations of crime are unique (hey, they take place in different locations, different times, different people involved). Those unique points should not be shoe-horned to fit another case tried 1000 miles away that had different people involved.
How to solve this? Invest more in our judicial system, please.
3. Prison system.
Well, you commit a crime, you need to pay for your crime to the point where society is satisfied. (Also see #2 in my list here). But what IS prison? Shouldn't prison at least ATTEMPT to rehabilitate the person who has committed the crime? What is the point of catching a criminal, throwing him into a cell for 10 years, then releasing him? Does anyone ACTUALLY BELIEVE that sitting in a cell for 10 years is going bring that person some kind of revelation? That he is going to step out of that cell a NEW MAN?
Prison is worthless and pointless. I am not saying we don't need prisons, I am saying they need to be reformed and made into something that takes the men going in, and at least TRIES to reform them, even in small ways.
My own ideas... make the men work. Let them perform societal functions that can benefit everyone. Whether that be harvesting farms, tilling fields, cleaning roadways and other areas, learning new trades or skills... but keep them busy. Let them feel like they are accomplishing something instead of just being parasites on the system. Give them some hope that when they leave prison they will actually be able to contribute back to society instead of leaching off it. Let them know that they DID contribute to society while they were IN prison.
These are the things that can change people. Not languishing, but action.
OK... I will get off my soap box now.
[EDIT]
Just as an update. The concept of failures in our court system does not JUST apply to murder and the death penalty. Google/research/whatever it is you can do, cases where people were incarcerated for a crime for 5 or more years only to FIGHT for a retrial and to PROVE their innocence later. Incompetency in the prosecutor or the defense attorney, and single-minded persecution by the court system to find SOMEONE guilty for any crime has and may continue to have a negative impact on false accusation/conviction.
