below you will find portions of a conversation I had tonight with someone that I knew from my undergraduate career at U of I. Background: He told me that he's a police officer in Chicago and that they are paying for him to go to Law School at a law school in Chicago. This struck up an entire conversation about the law and how now he can bypass things and word things in a way that won't get his people he arrests dismissed because he knows they are guilty. I'm going to copy and past some sections below:
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[redacted]: yeah.... I hate when my felony dope cases get thrown out...so now that I'm learing more... I'll word my reports so that I get everything approved....that may sound bad, but I know the people I arrest are guilty... so I'm putting things in my favor
Paige: I dunno... I've worked for the PD ... and though I've seen a good amount of guys that were obviously guilty, I've seen enough too that arent, or ones that deserve a sentence, but not the book thrown at them
[redacted]: I work in the ghetto and everyone is guilty
Paige: so there are no innocent bystanders that are just in the wrong place
[redacted]: if you are up at 4 in the morning on a sunday you are dirty, no, we have a saying in the ghetto: today's victim is tomorrow's offender
Paige: I'm up at 4am on a sunday... I'm a law student, and I could be downtown Chicago
------------------------------Paige: one of my good friends showed up at my door after he chased the principle with a baseball bat. He didn't hit him or get near him. He was punished for it, but now has gone to college and works as a manager at the mall and has a family. Not something you would have allotted him with what you're saying to me.
[redacted]: you know that I could have shot and killed him just for a baseball bat
Paige:... should he be punished for what he did... sure; should he have no chance to further himself ever because of a mistake he made as an adolescent?I don't believe so
[redacted]: and punishment for trying to harm a life is taking his
------------------------------ Paige: my guy in the car that saw the guys head get beaten off his shoulders... he's going in for murder. He was there, so thats where he goes. But do I believe that because he sat there in awe as another man, unplanned, pulled a bat out from a hidden compartment and bludgeoned another guy... he shouldn't get the same sentence as the guy who planned the murder, and who physically executed it.
[redacted]: sure he should, he was an accesorry (sic) to murder
Paige: he'll get a murder sentence for it, but he shouldn't get what the guy gets for beating this kids head in and setting him up for 1500
[redacted]: never think that these shit heads just happened to be there. Put it this way: you're getting him for something he's done that he never got convicted for [he is trying to say: this man has already committed murder and he has just gotten away with it before]
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Paige: you're saying my friend deserved to die? [the kid in the high school who chased the principal with the bat]
[redacted]: yes, he deserves what could happen to the victim, plain and simple
Paige: I don't subscribe to an eye for an eye, and neither does justice.
Paige: Im not put here to take lives, thats not the job prescribed to an attorney
[redacted]: it's called justice. then you should get out of law
Paige: justice is blind, by your answers its obvious that you're not
[redacted]: I can't be...because If i'm blind, innocents die, and for what? to preserve a democracy that's falling apart
Paige: take a min and take a look at what the symbol of law is, you look at that blind lady with the scales and remember what we are asked to uphold when we take that oath when entering law school.
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[redacted]: I know not "all" people are guilty but the majority is; everyone that I stop on the street at 3 am on a sunday is guilty. people sleep under a blanket of freedom I provide and then question the manner in which i provide it
Paige: I don't need someone who thinks that all people are guilty. I would suggest that an attitude like that is a hindrance.I think having beliefs like the ones you are sharing with me is a detriment to what is attempting to be upheld by the courts
------------------------------Believe me, the conversation was MUCH longer than this. I guess, its just one of the most disheartening conversations I've had since entering law school. I feel like when I entered law school I did it under the guise that what I stood and said when I took that oath the first day meant something, and was something to stand by. That people who are attorneys do so to properly uphold the law, to help mold it to further benefit the masses. I just got to the point where I couldn't even finish the conversation with [redacted]. By no means do I think anything is perfect. By no means do I think that every innocent person gets off and every guilty person gets what they deserve, and that people don't make mistakes when they are the attorney... but to hear someone set things up this way. To hear someone assume that everyone is guilty off the bat (among other things) was just... difficult.
I would appreciate comments on this conversation, and what people think about the law, attorneys, and what being an attorney means. Comment section is located just below this.
Paige, I completely agree with you. I think some officers become weary after having to deal with many “guilty” people day after day, some of which are let off. However, this is no excuse to lose perspective. Every life is precious and ideally no innocent person’s life should be taken away from them on the pretext that they were “on the street at 3am” and thus guilty. Our system has a way of dealing with potentially guilty parties and that is through the court of law, not a self imposed sense of justice. Your friend has an obligation to uphold America’s values when he took his own oath as an officer. I agree our system is imperfect, but that is no excuse to take matters into your own hands. That’s the stuff criminals are made of.
ReplyDeleteThis is pretty appalling. I can honestly say that we'd be better off without any policing institutions if the alternative is a nationwide system that reflects this guy's notion of a "blanket of freedom."
ReplyDeleteThe irony is while this guy seems to think "he's seen it all" and knows how everything works, he really is the most naive of them all. And I think that that is one of the root causes of MOST of the problems we face in America today: the complete naivete of most Americans. Most of us constantly make assumptions about people and situations that we really know nothing about. I know I'm guilty of it too. But this guy, he takes it too far.
Does he think Sunday papers just magically appear on doorsteps along with your morning coffee? Someone delivers that at 3 am. And when his buddy on the force gets shot at 2:55 am, the only reason he'll live is because someone paged that extra ER doc into work at 3:00 am. Plus, by his standards, the very fact that HE is out at 3:00 am means he's a guilty drug dealer too.
You need to reintroduce this guy to the 4th Amendment and tell him he could go to prison with the rest of 'em if he continues selectively editing his reports.
I don't think I could have put it any better than Deeba. By manipulating the law to frame someone as guilty, an officer is little better than a criminal. Our system's imperfections are to be changed through a legislative process. There's a reason why we have checks and balances. While that too is imperfect, it is a far better resolution than taking matters into your own hands and deciding "guilty until proven innocent" is the best way to go. "Innocent until proven guilty" has been the phrase by which our justice system operates, and there is a reason for that. Our country values our personal freedom enough to assume innocence. Surely many criminals have used this to their advantage, but as said before, it does not qualify a unilateral change in policy by one officer of the peace.
ReplyDeleteWho is this guy, quoting a few good men?
ReplyDeleteWas he drunk when this convo happened?
Just because that oath doesn't mean that much to everyone doesn't mean it shouldn't mean something to you. It is certainly about what you make of it and what kind of person you are.
Finally, it sucks that there are some dogmatic right-wing people who have not taken the time to consider the other things. They achieve their decisions because it is what they have always been told, never challenged it or have never seriously considered any other ideology. These people are the shakiest in their beliefs and stand to lose the most when their worlds become shattered. The smartest thing to do is to take into consideration what this person says, that there may be some truths hidden within it (even if they are only that there are sick people, namely him, in the world), and to allow it to either further strengthen your beliefs or modify them as appropriate. It is not worth getting mad at every ignorant person in the world, because the greatest thing about this country, is that they are entitled to their opinions just as you and I are entitled to our own.
Off topic, but I must address a comment made by david71180, because I cannot stand the fact that a commment is made automatically lumping into the "right-winged" people.
ReplyDeleteExtremism at either end of the spectrum lends itself to blindness (see: Lenin's "left-wing" Russia). When you're argument consists of casting the opposition into a single focus group, then you've no argument at all. The issues should be contested individually, not as part of some lump ideology. To do so only perpetuates the rift between right and left and allows no room for honest compromise. Instead all the righties become war-fiends and lefties become commies. That's no way to argue anything.
As for the "officer," as he is working to become a lawyer, perhaps he should consider working from within the law to close the loopholes that allow the guilty to shirk legitimate charges, rather than taking the law into his own hands.
Working within the system is the only way to legitimately change the system, unless that system is corrupt beyond correction, in which case we should all be in the streets, every last one of us, calling for revolution at this very second. As that's not the case, I still think there is time and space for working from withing the framework already established.
not worth the breath
ReplyDeleteI have been accused of being jaded because of my prior legal experience. One thing I have learned is that everyone lies: clients, opposing counsel, witnesses, police, etc. Judges will also do what they want based on how they feel not necessarily what the law states. There are still some people who need to represent those who are judge and deemed guilty by the police. Those same police who may want to write a report that sends their suspect right to the executioner.
ReplyDelete