Tucson, Arizona; Miami, Florida. Another weekend, another public servant murdered. Two actually this time. Yesterday, two police officers, trying to serve a warrant on a man and arrest him FOR MURDER, were murdered by the man they were trying to arrest for murder. And so I adopt here without re-write what I wrote on January 11.
And I write further.
During a week when the Paramount Leader of the People's Republic of Dungeon visited the capital of the New Republic with perhaps too few dungeons, Americans--again--go through the shock-grief-retribution cycle.
The January 11 post was a difficult one to write, intellectually difficult I mean, for it is indeed tortured argument to argue that one country, America, shows it's reverence for life (partly) by its tolerance of murder in its streets while another, China, shows its indifference to life (partly) by locking up "the usual suspects." Argue that to Judge Roll's family and those of the five others murdered last weekend in Tucson. Argue that to the families of the two police officers murdered yesterday in Miami.
No, no, it is not justified by a "reverence for life," not when people are murdered so that, to err on the side of caution, others--the kooks, the common street criminals--walk the streets to kill again. And it is not justified by "justice." These two murders, and all murders, are failures of a system, they are not evidence of its benefits. I have wrestled with this contradiction for twenty-nine years on one of the business ends of the American criminal justice system, first as prosecutor, now as criminal defense attorney. I believe in the presumption of innocence as an American lawyer, I believed in it as a prosecutor, I believe in it as a defense attorney. I believe in the right that Americans accused have to a right to a fair jury trial. But I believe more in the "right to life," in the "human right" that we, Americans, Chinese, all human beings have, in the right not to be murdered. Murder, whether it happens in Beijing, China in 1966, or in Tucson, Arizona or Miami, Florida in 2011 is the ultimate concern to all people, wherever it happens. It is to me. And it pains me greatly that I don't have an answer to how to prevent, as I put it on January 11, "the drearily familiar cycle" of emotions that Americans go through when murder happens, that I have no answer to how to reduce the murder rate in America. The murders in Tucson and Miami were eminently preventable if...if we Americans were "comfortable" taking away the liberty, maybe even only temporarily, of the killers in Tucson and Miami. We are not.
I feel such grief, and I am so embarrassed: for my profession, the law, which has failed its country, yet again, and for my country.
And so it was hard last weekend, it is hard today, it is hard every time murder happens in America to say "I believe in the American criminal justice system." But I say it. I said it on January 11, I say it today, I will say it tomorrow and until the day I die. I practice it. Were I a prosecutor, I would do everything in my power to convict the killers in Tucson and Miami. And, as a defense attorney, were I to be assigned those cases, I would work till exhaustion to free those accused. Maybe that's wrong of me, but I would do it. That's the American criminal justice system, and I believe in it. Even today. Even last weekend. But it is hard.
And I write further.
During a week when the Paramount Leader of the People's Republic of Dungeon visited the capital of the New Republic with perhaps too few dungeons, Americans--again--go through the shock-grief-retribution cycle.
The January 11 post was a difficult one to write, intellectually difficult I mean, for it is indeed tortured argument to argue that one country, America, shows it's reverence for life (partly) by its tolerance of murder in its streets while another, China, shows its indifference to life (partly) by locking up "the usual suspects." Argue that to Judge Roll's family and those of the five others murdered last weekend in Tucson. Argue that to the families of the two police officers murdered yesterday in Miami.
No, no, it is not justified by a "reverence for life," not when people are murdered so that, to err on the side of caution, others--the kooks, the common street criminals--walk the streets to kill again. And it is not justified by "justice." These two murders, and all murders, are failures of a system, they are not evidence of its benefits. I have wrestled with this contradiction for twenty-nine years on one of the business ends of the American criminal justice system, first as prosecutor, now as criminal defense attorney. I believe in the presumption of innocence as an American lawyer, I believed in it as a prosecutor, I believe in it as a defense attorney. I believe in the right that Americans accused have to a right to a fair jury trial. But I believe more in the "right to life," in the "human right" that we, Americans, Chinese, all human beings have, in the right not to be murdered. Murder, whether it happens in Beijing, China in 1966, or in Tucson, Arizona or Miami, Florida in 2011 is the ultimate concern to all people, wherever it happens. It is to me. And it pains me greatly that I don't have an answer to how to prevent, as I put it on January 11, "the drearily familiar cycle" of emotions that Americans go through when murder happens, that I have no answer to how to reduce the murder rate in America. The murders in Tucson and Miami were eminently preventable if...if we Americans were "comfortable" taking away the liberty, maybe even only temporarily, of the killers in Tucson and Miami. We are not.
I feel such grief, and I am so embarrassed: for my profession, the law, which has failed its country, yet again, and for my country.
And so it was hard last weekend, it is hard today, it is hard every time murder happens in America to say "I believe in the American criminal justice system." But I say it. I said it on January 11, I say it today, I will say it tomorrow and until the day I die. I practice it. Were I a prosecutor, I would do everything in my power to convict the killers in Tucson and Miami. And, as a defense attorney, were I to be assigned those cases, I would work till exhaustion to free those accused. Maybe that's wrong of me, but I would do it. That's the American criminal justice system, and I believe in it. Even today. Even last weekend. But it is hard.
