People
are losing faith in a number of America�s institutions
because these institutions are failing miserably.�
For example, take the U.S. criminal justice system.� In one
week we learned two things: First, Columbia law professor
James Liebman and his students revealed that Texas executed
an innocent man named Carlos
DeLuna in 1989.� DeLuna was executed for the 1983
brutal stabbing death of a young woman at a gas station.�
Forensic evidence was bungled or destroyed, and the crime
scene quickly cleaned up.� The actual murderer was Carlos
Hernandez - a man with a history of violence who bore
a resemblance to DeLuna, and a self-proclaimed knife murderer
who bragged about committing the crime.� DeLuna�s defense
team even mentioned Hernandez to the jury as the real
killer, but to no avail.� Meanwhile, a condemned man maintained
his innocence to his grave, and apparently all Latinos
look alike to some key actors in the criminal justice
system.
Second, and this relates to the first, the University of Michigan
Law School and Northwestern University announced the creation
of a National Registry of Exonerations, a database of over
2,000 prisoners wrongfully convicted of murder and rape
since 1989. The authors of the database found, among other
things, that death row inmates - who are a quarter of
those exonerated of murder - are exonerated nine times
more often than other murder convicts. �And false convictions
are typically the result of prosecutorial misconduct,
perjury and bad eyewitness testimony.
In other words, the database confirms what
many have maintained for quite some time, which is that
the imprisonment and execution of innocent men and women
are common, and far more common than you thought.� Carlos
DeLuna, Troy Davis and Cameron Todd Willingham are not
aberrations, but rather part of a troubling pattern.
Moreover, if the criminal justice system is
allowed to exist in such a broken, dysfunctional and corrupt
state, what does that say about the system itself, and
those who allowed to administer it?� After all, systems
and institutions are made up of human beings, who have
their own agendas, interests, foibles, flaws and prejudices
that often conflict with the common good.� Meanwhile,
born and raised in the �land of the free,� many were conditioned to accept
things as they are, assuming our institutions work well
and in our best interests.� Everyone who is punished is
guilty, and the innocent are protected, or so they believed.�
But that�s not always the case.���
Cracks in the criminal justice system reflect
incompetence and negligence by some defense lawyers, judges
and prosecutors.� And prosecutors, at their worst, want
to score a big win - regardless of the tactics employed,
and never mind issues of guilt or innocence of the accused,
for that matter.� So sometimes, they will strike black
prospective jurors, coerce witnesses or hide or destroy
evidence.� Careers are built, livelihoods made and profits
amassed through the human raw materials of the prison-industrial
complex.� And prisons and their contractors need warm
bodies, sometimes dead bodies, to justify their existence.
If Carlos DeLuna and the exonerations database
represent a turning point in the criminal justice system
- particularly the death penalty - then other systems
have had their turning points these days.�� For example,
problems in the U.S. financial system, in the form of
the Great Recession, the subprime mortgage fiasco and
the student debt crisis, have precipitated a public discourse
on economic inequality, and a critical
look at capitalism itself.� The conduct of commercial banks, engaged in risky casino
gambling with other people�s money, has led to renewed
calls for reregulation.� Further, the injection of Bain
Capital in this political season has placed the spotlight
on vulture capitalism, where companies are chopped up
and workers jettisoned, all for the profits of the few
rather than the nation�s economic well-being.
On the political side, it was the Supreme Court�s
decision in Citizens United, which gave a blessing
to unlimited corporate influence in elections.� This resulted
in the birth of the Super PAC, the expansion of legalized
bribery, and the ability of a small group of hyper-wealthy
individuals to determine the outcome of the political
process.� Perhaps one of the more insidious examples of
corporate influence peddling and the buying of lawmakers
was ALEC, or the American Legislative Exchange Council.�
ALEC, sponsored by major corporations, was responsible
for a number of offensive policy initiatives across the
country, including �stand your ground� laws implicated
in the Trayvon Martin shooting death, forced, legislation
mandating intrusive ultrasounds for pregnant women seeking
abortions, and voter ID laws that stand to disenfranchise
millions of people.��
�� 
America�s criminal justice system is broken,
but so are its economic and political systems.� That�s
quite a trifecta.� In each case, the folks running the
show are engaged in a winner-take-all proposition.� In
their adversarial worldview governed by pathological individualism,
there always are winners - themselves and their friends
- and losers - everyone else.� As crimes are committed
in high places, we are made to turn on the wrong enemies,
powerless scapegoats from the poor and working class,
and ethnic, racial and religious minorities.� They make
you believe that criminalizing, or killing, or deporting,
or ostracizing these scapegoats will make your problems
go away.�� And as they deflect attention from their own
wrongdoing by way of smokescreens, they count on your
undying allegiance to the system, and fealty to the status
quo.
And yet, people are waking up.� When citizens
begin to question the institutions that have failed them
and society for the benefit of the few, that�s when real
change has a chance to peek through the window.� But we
run the risk of missing that window of opportunity.�
BlackCommentator.com Executive Editor, David A. Love, JD is a journalist
and human rights advocate based in Philadelphia, is a
graduate of Harvard College and the University of Pennsylvania Law School. and a contributor to
The Huffington
Post, the Grio,
The Progressive
Media Project, McClatchy-Tribune News Service,
In These Times and Philadelphia Independent
Media Center. He also blogs at davidalove.com, NewsOne, Daily Kos,
and Open
Salon. Click here to contact Mr. Love.
