Wednesday, June 22, 2005
He broke the law!
So, you probably heard the inexplicably huge news that some killer got prisoneded. With a name like "Killen," what did you expect from him?
What's troubling about this story is that people want to put the justice system on hold because of the politics of the situation. Consider these quotes:
From a juror: "I think initially we were polarized by two positions," [Warren Paprocki] said. "On the one hand, this guy needs to be convicted and on the other hand, the state needed to present better evidence."
On the final hand, isn't it the jurors job to determine if the state has proved beyond a reasonable doubt if Killen murdered/manslaughtered? Does it matter if the guy "needs to be convicted"?
From an editorial: In closing arguments, prosecutors asked the jury to send another message to the world: Times have changed in Mississippi, and the pursuit of the perpetrators of these hate crimes of the past would never end.
Once again, is the jury supposed to be in the business of sending messages? One could argue that Killen got off the first time precisely because the justice system was more worried about sending messages and whether someone "needed to be convicted" than whether Killen was guilty of murder.
It smells a lot like the Gwen Araujo case, where one of the jurors gave us an inside look in the EBX.
"We are strongly disappointed and saddened that Gwen, her family, her friends and the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community won't get fair and swift justice," opined president Cheryl Jacques of the Human Rights Campaign in a press release. Funny, but I couldn't remember anything in our jury instructions about the need to provide swift justice for the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community.
Stop and wonder. What if this was some other 40-year-old murder where the dude got away with it the first time? But you know, one without the PC message-sending overtones. Would the same effort be put on convicting that dude? Well, we don't really need to wonder. A few years ago, some folks from the "Symbionese Liberation Army" finally got nabbed for an old murder. None of them got more than 10 years. Sure, they're sorry, but who cares? Justice is justice, apparently conditioned on whether a political point needs to be made.
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