We Need to Socialize--Fully--the Criminal Justice System!

I'm not a huge fan of socialism in most things.  Not that there aren't social programs that are good, in principle, to protect all citizens from the unpredictable vicissitudes of fate.  In general, regrettably, governments tend to do many things poorly and inefficiently (although, as someone who grew up in the Detroit area, I know that big corporations can often be just as lacking in that area as governments, and just as immune to internal correction).  However, there is one area of life in which I think it is a complete travesty that there is anything but complete socialization, and that area is the criminal justice system.

I can tolerate the use of privately employed attorneys in civil cases--though just barely, and arguments can be made that money unfairly sways matters even in such venues (Your comments on that notion would be welcome).  However, it is utterly unconscionable that private attorneys are ever allowed in the criminal justice system.  

Our court system itself is of course utterly antiquated.  It has more in common with medieval jousting matches to determine guilt or innocence than it has with any honest attempt to find the truth of any particular matter.  In a typical court proceeding, the person who has the best attorney, or team, is the one most likely to win.  And that usually means that the person with the most money wins.  It's not true universally, of course, but it is a strongly dispositive factor.  Consider the O.J. Simpson trial:  Would O.J. likely have been acquitted had he been represented by a public defender?  I think we can all agree that the answer is "No."  Well, why should he have had any better chance of winning than any other man charged with murdering his wife and her friend?  Why should a person's individual wealth have any bearing on the quality of defense they receive in a criminal case?

The argument can, and probably will, be made that make all defendants rely on the public defender's office would simply mean that even those with money will face the same ridiculous miscarriages of justice, the same hobbled defense, as a non-wealthy person does when charged with a criminal offense.  To this, I say, "Good!"  Maybe if a few of the movers and shakers of society realize just how horrible the situation is for a non-wealthy person who is charged with any crime in America, they will see to it that changes are made.  Maybe they will see to it that defendants in criminal cases get at least as many resources applied to them as the prosecutor's office has to bring to bear (and do recall that the prosecution has not only the power of their office, but also that the resources of all pertinent police forces are more or less at their disposal...something that certainly cannot be said for any defendant).

The hallmark of our criminal justice system is supposed to be that a person is innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.  Given that presumption, we must be scrupulous to err on the side of the defendant.  The state has tremendous, monolithic power, and can destroy the lives of citizens almost with impunity by means of simply bringing a criminal prosecution, whatever the outcome.  Given this fact, and the supposed basis of our criminal justice system, all biases should be in favor of the accused.  Clearly this is not the case; if it were, the United States would not have five times its share of the world's prisoners based on population...the largest number of prisoners in absolute numbers and per capita.  This is to say nothing of the outrageous inequality in the application of criminal justice to minorities.  This would be at least partly rectified by having the wealthy receive the same defense as the poor, since minorities, in general, are less likely to be wealthy than their counterparts.

Of course, the privatization of prisons absolutely has to stop as part of this process.  It appears simply impossible for inappropriate bias not to be introduced into a system when a for-profit interest becomes involved in it (See the ACLU's report from 2012 here).  In general, I see government itself as a necessary evil, but it is necessary, precisely because human nature has not yet reached a state of development where we can be trusted to do many things honestly and justly if our personal interests are engaged.  But when we give our governments certain powers, and those powers are then put at the disposal of private interests, who have their own monetary gain at heart rather than the achievement of actual justice, it is perfectly predictable for disaster to occur.

How comfortable would we all be if police departments were privately run?  What if the degree of one's protection by law enforcement were overtly and explicitly dependent upon one's financial power (as opposed to being only implicitly so, as it is now)?  How safe would you feel?  What if you had to pay a fee for services, or pay to become a member of some club in order to have the police investigate, say, your stolen car...or the murder of one of your family members?  I think we can all agree that this is not a system under which we would hope to live, where the power of law enforcement works only for the highest bidder.

So, why should the quality of a person's defense against charges of crime be dependent upon the financial resources one can bring to bear?  Even if it were true that every person's financial status were dependent upon the quality of their character and their personal ability, even if all fortunes were honestly and openly made in truly fair trade--a notion that veers away from mere fiction into the realm of wildest fantasy--there would still be no justification for giving the financially successful better defense against charges of criminal activity than a person who was not successful.  There is no data to demonstrate that financial success is inversely correlated with degree of criminality, and in reality, the correlation is often a positive one.

Of course, depriving individuals of the ability to hire their own criminal defense attorneys would further drain the budgets and other resources of our court systems; this would be a good thing.  It would help force us, as a society, to do a better job of prioritizing our application of police and prosecutorial (and thus also defense) resources--to decide how important it was, for example, to arrest people for possession of marijuana or even of more powerful drugs, when they have not taken any action that brings harm to any other person.  Needless to say, in applying such a policy, we must avoid the pitfall of simply increasing the use of plea bargaining to deal with such resource burdens, since that system is, by nature, biased and unjust, a criminal process in its own right (see my blog on the subject here).

The changes I call for are drastic, I know.  I don't apologize for that, and I will likely continue to call for even more such changes as time goes by.  Our system is drastically malfunctioning, drastically inefficient, and drastically unjust.  It must be changed, overhauled, or completely replaced with something better, if we wish to have the right to continue to call America a free society.

In States Where They Lose Voting Rights, ex-Felons Should Not Pay Taxes

I first learned about many of the principles behind the United States government while watching cartoons on Saturday mornings, on Schoolhouse Rock.  These cartoon shorts are available to own, and if you have kids, I strongly encourage you to make that investment.  In any case, on a particular history rock episode about the Declaration of Independence, I first heard of the concept of taxation without representation, as one of the major complaints that led the American colonists to rebel against the government of Great Britain.  If I recall the exact quote from that cartoon, it said, “That’s called taxation without representation...and it’s not fair.”  Having learned at least a little bit more about the concept in the intervening years, I’ve decided that I agree, and I think most people in America would concur.  How can a person reasonably and ethically be forced to pay for the activities of a government in which they have no ability to participate?

And yet, there is a class of people in this country that is subject to the very injustice which was part of what motivated our Founders to revolt against the rule of Great Britain.  These people are ex-convicts in such states as Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Nevada, Arizona, and several others.

It can be difficult to elicit sympathy for former prisoners; people in the United States seem to be under the mistaken impression that only bad people go to prison, and that such people are no longer American citizens.  Neither statement is true.

There is a well-known fact that bears repeating:  The United States has one twentieth of the world’s population, but one quarter of the world’s prisoners.  Think about that.  Communist China, a country with a population of over a billion and a half, and erstwhile stomping ground of such luminaries as Mao Tse Tung, has a far lower percentage of prisoners than the supposed land of the free and home of the brave.  And in many states, even after they have served their lawful time in prison (most of them due to our ill-born and stillborn “war on drugs”), American citizens in many states are denied the right to vote for several years at least, and then have to petition to have these rights restored.

Why is such a thing being done here in America, the beacon of democracy?  Well, consider this:  While the African American population in Florida is only about 15% of the general populace, almost 50% of those in the state’s prisons are African American.  Now don’t fool yourself; black people do NOT actually commit more crimes per capita than non-blacks, certainly not FOUR TIMES as many crimes.  Enforcement of laws in the U.S. is known to be racially biased in profound and systematic ways, as is prosecution, as is sentencing.  And then, the final injustice, after release from prison, even after any probation is completed, voting rights are withheld from such individuals.  The “reasoning” behind this theft of rights is patently obvious:  The greatest proportion of ex-convicts--and black people--vote Democrat...and in those states which have withheld voting rights, the party in power, the party which instituted the policy of violating fundamental American voting rights, is almost invariably Republican.

I am far from the first person to point out such outrageous facts.  But I may be one of the first to suggest that, given that ex-convicts are not allowed to vote, they should not pay taxes.  It is an obscenity and an embarrassment to the principles on which this country was founded for people to be systematically disenfranchised and then still asked to pay for the government in which they have no say.   As Thomas Jefferson so eloquently pointed out, it is only to secure our rights that governments are instituted among the peoples of the earth, and they derive their just powers only from the consent of the governed.  If one does not have the right to vote, one is being governed without consent, and that is not the way things should be done in the United States of America.

The true spiritual heirs of the Boston Tea Party are the ex-felons of Florida and other states that deny voting rights.  All ex-felons in these states should refuse to pay any taxes unless and until this outrageous injustice is addressed.  Remember, the founders of the U.S.A. were, technically, criminals...according to the laws of their then-government, that of Great Britain.  Recognizing that their rulers were not divine entities, but mere humans just like themselves, these brave people stood up against injustice and created a new nation.  Now that nation has gone far astray from the ideals upon which it was founded, and this revocation of the right to vote for a carefully and deliberately selected subclass of people is only one of the manifestations of that divergence.  Optimism leads one to hope that it will not require another revolution for us to restore some semblance of justice as sanity to America.  But something must be done.  There must be no taxation without representation within the confines of the nation founded in defiance of that very injustice.

There are a great many facts about the American criminal “justice” system which should be embarrassing and horrifying to every American citizen with any sense of ethics or knowledge of history whatsoever.  This is one of the most glaring of these.  As Lysander Spooner said, "If taxation without consent it not robbery, then any band of robbers have only to declare themselves a government, and all their robberies will be legalized." The converse of this statement is that any government that practices taxation without consent--without representation--is a bad of robbers, of criminals. Of course, criminals such as these deserve to be put in prison. And in Florida and similar states, this means that they would lose their right to vote, even after completing their sentences.

How interesting.

An Anarchistic Thought Experiment

In celebration of my joyous return to Florida, and my oh-so-entertaining dealings (already) with the bureaucracy of Broward County, I thought I would post something that I originally wrote some time ago...while I was "away," in fact. It involved an invitation and discussion of a gedankenexperiment (did I get the German right?) that I considered for myself. I would like to invite all of you readers to consider it with respect either to Florida or to your own states, and tell me what you think might happen.

Ready? Here we go.

Albert Einstein famously used “thought experiments” to explore the implications of his theories of Special and General Relativity. This was necessary because actual experiments about many of the aspects of Relativity were simply not possible...and some of them may never be. After all, we can never truly get information back from inside an event horizon, at least as far as we know, so we have to consider what might happen to someone who plunged past one only in principle. In that spirit, let’s do our own thought experiment now, about what would happen if the government of Florida--at all levels, from the Governor down to the custodian who mops up the local DMV--were to disappear abruptly.

For humanitarian purposes, let’s stipulate that no harm has come to anyone in the government, but rather that--for inscrutable reasons of their own--a powerful alien race has suddenly teleported every member of every government body in the state to some other part of the country, along with their families, modifying their memories and giving them new, and better, sources of livelihood. Also, let's imagine that an impenetrable barrier, a la Stephen King’s Under the Dome, prevents the federal government from stepping in to take any action. How would the people of Florida react once they discovered that all those in “authority” were suddenly gone?

It’s all but inevitable that, at least temporarily, a time of chaos would ensue. Some people would panic and be overwhelmed by paranoia. Others might celebrate the sudden lack of supervisory restriction by indulging in various types of crime. But the people of Florida are, to say the least, well-armed. In the ultimate spirit of “stand your ground” legislation, many citizens would defend themselves against celebrating criminals...at least the ones they deemed truly dangerous, such as thieves, rapists, murderers, trespassers, and the like. It would be silly to imagine that all such anti social miscreants would be eliminated during such a natural “purge,” but at least some of them would doubtless find that the law had protected them at least as much as it had restricted them.

Meanwhile, the average Floridian might discover that, when true, urgent needs have to be addressed, such manufactured “crises” as drug use, gambling, and even prostitution do not directly impact upon their own health, safety, and happiness. What vigilante has ever felt the urge to hunt down and kill someone who is smoking a joint in his own home, or playing a non-state-sanctioned game of poker? A new sense of perspective about such so-called offenses might very well come into being. Wouldn't that be nice?

It’s inevitable, of course, that some fundamental new social agreements would have to be made, instituting a new form of proto-government. Some type of currency would also have to be chosen, though at first old-fashioned barter might rule the day. One thing is certain: Having a great deal of money in the bank, or tied up in overseas investments, would not yield one anything like the advantages they do in our current society. Also, without government entitlement programs, the health and care of those unable to care for themselves would likely be provided only by the goodwill of their families, their friends, and their neighbors. Thankfully, history has show that, in crises and natural disasters, many Americans (and other humans) do tend to look out for those who are weaker than they. Not everyone does it, but a surprisingly large fraction of people do. However, the criteria for being considered truly “disabled” by one’s fellow citizens, would likely become much stricter, without “other people’s money” paying the bills. It would be interesting to find out of things would be more or less compassionate than they are as things stand now.

Whatever new form of government the people might institute--and there would very likely be many conflicts and upheavals in that process--at the very least, some serious reassessment of priorities would likely ensue. In order to survive and thrive, the citizens would need to make cooperation and productivity the watchwords of their lives. If they didn’t, natural selection would likely do its ruthless but even-handed job and wipe them out.

It would take a great deal of time to explore thoroughly all the possible effects and ramifications of a sudden loss of government in the state of Florida. We can be sure that there would be at least some violence, and a great deal of disorder, fear, and heartbreak. Ultimately, though, there would have to be a return to a new equilibrium, if that term makes any sense, and it could be hoped--if one were optimistic--that the new government might be less intrusive, less authoritarian, and more streamlined than that currently in existence. It’s a historical truism that governments tend to increase in power, complexity, and self-justification over time; thus, however disorderly our alien intervention might temporarily make things, it’s possible that the complete loss of the current government of Florida might, in the long run, be very good for all honest Floridians not already in the government’s employ.

What are your thoughts? What are some of the things that you think would happen if aliens eliminated the government of Florida, or of your own state, if you're not a Floridian? Would things ultimately become better, or would they be worse? Let me know.

The plea bargain system is a sadistic game of extortion

Imagine the following scenario:

You are being held hostage  by a group of armed men and women.  You know they are a very large and well-financed group, and that escape is nearly impossible.  Representatives of this organization--a few of whom even claim to be working to protect you--give you the following choice:  You may agree to be their prisoner for a specific amount of time, perhaps a few months, perhaps a few years.  You will also be giving up most or all of your material possessions, agreeing to proclaim publicly that you have done some terrible deed to earn this captivity--thus destroying your good reputation, if you have one--and even relinquishing some of your human rights.  The alternative is to agree to play a twisted, sadistic, and highly rigged game, one which you have very little chance of winning; even your own so-called allies assure you of this fact.  They tell you bluntly that the game is stacked horrifically against you, and that your ruin will be sought assiduously by your opponents, using all of their considerable resources.  If you lose, they will keep you prisoner for a far longer period of time than you had been offered--perhaps even for the rest of your natural life, and your imprisonment will entail risks to your health and the risk of death--and you will lose all that you would have agreed to give up anyway.  The choice is yours.

What would you do?

This is the choice faced by those who find themselves in the American criminal justice system and are offered a plea bargain.

The plea bargain system, for those of you who are unfamiliar with it, is essentially the process I have described above.  An accused criminal (already assumed guilty by the State, whose Prosecutors are tasked with winning, not with actually finding the truth), is given the option of pleading to a specific charge and agreeing to the imprisonment and/or other punishment entailed therein.  If the accused does not agree, he or she is assured by the State that they will seek the harshest possible sentence available to them under the law, and they have the influence to make it stick.

Some might currently be thinking, "Well, but the accused has the right to legal representation," and this is, technically, true.  However, the Prosecution works within the criminal justice system every day, all day (except weekends and holidays, of course), and thus knows the ins and outs of the judicial process better than almost anybody else.  They have political pull, they know the judges...and they know the police, who can be relied upon to go along with their prosecution, since the police and the Prosecutors depend upon each other to achieve their goals and thus to move up in their particular careers.  If one has a great deal of money, of course--and I do mean a great deal--one can hire a private defense attorney, but most of those who are brought before the criminal justice system do not fall into that category.  The usual suspects are, instead, relegated to the Public Defender's office.

I have serious respect for the Public Defenders, as a general rule.  They take on a thankless and even reviled role, which many of them do for purely idealistic reasons, believing (unlike a good fraction of their counterparts) that every person is innocent until proven guilty, and deserves a fair trial with a vigorous defense.  Unfortunately, individual Public Defenders tend to have ridiculous numbers of cases--measuring into the hundreds at a time--and lower budgets than the Prosecutors' offices have.  This fact, of course, runs counter, in principle, to the very idea of "innocent until proven guilty".  If we were living by that moral code as a society, we would surely give our Public Defenders better resources than their opponents, who after all have their own budgets in addition to the help of local law enforcement.

According to the Constitutional Rights Foundation, more than 90% of all criminal cases never go to trial, but are instead settled with a plea bargain.  This is often seen as a good thing for the defendant, a way for them to reduce their potential sentence.  However, what it really represents is a means by which the State can achieve the conviction of an accused citizen without ever having to go to the trouble of proving their case.  This is especially true when the accused comes from a lower socio-economic background, but it is by no means confined to that group. Any person who finds him or herself brought before the courts is, of course, terrified...especially one who is innocent, ironically enough.  Even the reasonably wealthy do not have resources in the same league as the vast, monolithic, and merciless machine which is the State's criminal justice system.  The accused in a criminal proceeding faces a dilemma rather akin to being given the choice of either playing a round of Russian roulette or being shot outright.  It is impossible for a defendant to make a rational, honest decision in his or her own best interest in such a situation.  And though Defense attorneys are there to help, they are, as I said, overworked and underfunded.  In addition, Defenders have to see and work with the Prosecutors day in and day out.  They tend not to make waves over what they see as minor cases, because they might want or need a favor in the future on some case of greater political import.  This is not done out of some moral failing on their part; it is done out of simple, brutal necessity.

When an accused makes his (or her) statement before a judge, announcing that he is pleading guilty to a particular charge, as part of a plea bargain, he is asked by the judge if he has been threatened or otherwise coerced into making this plea.  Of course, if he answers anything other than "No," he will not have his plea bargain available any more, and he can rest assured that the Prosecution will be livid, and will pursue his ruin with even greater fervor than they might have otherwise.  Yet to pose the question at all is a sick joke, for the true answer is always and inescapably "Yes."  A defendant who accepts a plea bargain always does so under threat--and it is a threat of force, since it entails being taken to prison in shackles, by armed men and women, and being held there against his will a long period of time.  It is a rare situation indeed in which a person would plead guilty without being under such a threat.  The accused knows that truly fair trials are very few and far between, especially for those who do not have a great deal of money, and for those in ethnic minorities.  He almost always--90% of the time, anyway--takes the seeming lesser of the two evils on offer.

If our society does not have the resources to give a full and fair trial to every person who is accused of a crime, then rather than institute a biased, extortionist, abusive system of plea bargains, we should simply not opt to arrest and prosecute so many people.  There are real crimes to prosecute; we should apply appropriate resources to those crimes, and this includes providing for the actual fair trials of the defendants.  We should never bully or railroad any American citizen into a prison sentence under threat of a worse one.

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I will be writing more about this subject, and other aspects of the criminal justice system, in the future.  I encourage you to respond with comments, and share your views and experiences, whether you agree or disagree with me.  I, in turn, will do my best to engage in honest conversation with you.