Today I walked into court with an innocent man who was facing life in prison for something he didn't do. By the time we got there, we had an offer from the prosecutor--if he'd just plead to this two-year misdemeanor, he'd walk away with no jail time and maybe 18 months of probation.
What's a guy going to do? Risk trial and face a possible life sentence? Cop a plea to something that he didn't really do, but that keeps him out of prison and without the horrible stigma of the other conviction? I know that most of you would like to believe that innocent people never get arrested, and even if they do, never plead to something they didn't do. But that's just not true. So many times, I'm standing by a client who's pleading guilty to something, and I wonder if this is the just result. I wonder if it's the right thing. I wonder if they really did what they're claiming they did.
Many, many people who are arrested for crimes are guilty of those crimes. I'd venture to guess that more than 95% of them are. And most of my clients who are actually guilty are prepared to plead to something. So mostly my job is just to figure out how to mitigate the damages that they've already caused to their own lives.
But the innocent ones who maintain their innocence all the way through, they have to have a lot of faith in the system. They have to trust that a jury of their peers would see through the inconsistent testimony of the complaining witnesses and the shoddy investigation and find him not guilty. They have to trust their attorneys have their best interests at heart and have been working night and day to prepare for their day of reckoning in court. And maybe they even have to believe that there is a God who cares about justice and who cares about them.
The only reason I can do this job is because I believe that God cares about justice. And I believe that when I pray that God's kingdom would come and his will would be done on earth, in part I'm praying that his justice would reign even in the midst of this very unjust world. I hate that my client had to anguish about this case for the last year while the case plodded its way through the court system. I hate that he had to pay me and my co-counsel to represent him. I hate that his life will never be the same again because of what he was accused of.
But my client's case was dismissed today, just before the jury would be called in for trial. This small measure of justice--not full justice, and very late--but this small measure of justice is an imperfect, incomplete picture of the kind of justice we can look forward to in the fullness of time when Christ finally reigns. I look forward to a day when there will not be suffering but peace, when no one is victimized and no one is falsely accused, and when there is no more brokenness but everyone is healed.
Until then, I will continue to follow Jesus to this place of opportunity to serve the poor and the oppressed by seeking the kind of justice we can find through our broken system. And all the while, I'll continue to pray that God will bring his kingdom and his true justice right now to the pain and brokenness that I see every day.
Showing posts with label social justice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social justice. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Bringing justice the kingdom way
It's easy to talk about love and justice and peace in the abstract. Everyone would probably agree that those are good things. But how do we find them? Do we find them by being loving and peaceful and trusting God to bring about justice? Or do we chase after those ideas without giving thought to how our actions and attitudes affect other people?
The legal world is a veritable minefield of opportunities to act opposite to the principles of the Kingdom of God. It's set up as an adversarial system--for whatever reason, someone decided a long time ago that the way we make justice happen is by having everyone fight tooth and nail for every inch of the dispute. If you're getting a divorce, then of course the most fair outcome is going to happen when you fight your ex-spouse for every moment of parenting time and every dollar in alimony. If you're a civil attorney, then you're definitely going to want to break the rules to give yourself an advantage but complain every time the opposing party does something wrong.
So every day, I have an opportunity (or maybe a challenge) about how I'm going to live. Am I going to bring all of my choices to God in prayer and ask that God would give me wisdom and discernment in how to approach things? Am I going to spend time seeking the best for everyone involved (including the victims of a crime as well as my client) rather than thinking of every way that I can make it hard for the other party? Am I going to treat opposing counsel with grace and compassion in a system that is built to take advantage of those things? Do I really believe that God is a God of justice and that the way he's chosen to bring that about is through love and compassion and sacrifice and humility and kindness?
In my heart, I do think that God's way is the best way. I really do think that it's better for everyone if I treat the opposing party and their counsel with respect and kindness even if they've been terrible to me. I do think that, in the end, my client wins when I play by God's value system. I actually believe that fighting for my client includes seeing the bigger picture of how litigation affects the person's whole life. But it's a constant struggle in this adversarial system to be a Christian. It's a constant struggle to fight the urge to fight back just because I'm frustrated or annoyed rather than fighting for justice and for peace in the way and time that it's actually necessary and appropriate.
So that's what bringing the Kingdom of God into my world looks like. What about you? What are the areas of your work or home life than conflict with God's values and purposes? How are you challenged to choose his way? What friends are helping you to figure out what it looks like in your life?
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
trial and prayer
Well, I'm all immersed in preparing for a trial. They come along so infrequently that they tend up to take up my whole life for a couple of weeks. So all I've got floating around in my head right now are social-justice type issues...
Like the mentally ill guy who got sentenced to 40 years to life for murdering someone. How can we treat someone who cannot choose between right and wrong or cannot control his actions the same way we treat criminals? What will his life be like in prison, where he'll be with people who will not respect his human dignity and who will likely prey on his vulnerabilities? Heartbreaking.
Or how in the world can I participate in a system that dehumanizes people the minute they're accused of a crime? How can I watch another person being treated without dignity in a way that doesn't even begin to bring healing and restoration into the midst of everyone's pain?
Some days, it's really hard to figure out what being a believer, a person of faith, a person whose primary allegiance is to the Kingdom of God, looks like in this place. What is my responsibility to the mentally ill criminals in my community? Is what I'm doing as an attorney contributing to injustice or fighting it? What would God have me do, right now, today?
Just taking it one day at a time and praying that God's Kingdom would come and his will would be done here.
Like the mentally ill guy who got sentenced to 40 years to life for murdering someone. How can we treat someone who cannot choose between right and wrong or cannot control his actions the same way we treat criminals? What will his life be like in prison, where he'll be with people who will not respect his human dignity and who will likely prey on his vulnerabilities? Heartbreaking.
Or how in the world can I participate in a system that dehumanizes people the minute they're accused of a crime? How can I watch another person being treated without dignity in a way that doesn't even begin to bring healing and restoration into the midst of everyone's pain?
Some days, it's really hard to figure out what being a believer, a person of faith, a person whose primary allegiance is to the Kingdom of God, looks like in this place. What is my responsibility to the mentally ill criminals in my community? Is what I'm doing as an attorney contributing to injustice or fighting it? What would God have me do, right now, today?
Just taking it one day at a time and praying that God's Kingdom would come and his will would be done here.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
The culture of crime
I sat in court this morning and watched a judge berate a father for spanking his 8-year-old kid with a belt. The judge said, "I would never, ever consider hitting my child with a belt." The father said back to the judge, "I'm trying to make my child into a good man, so he's not pulling up to a drive-through restaurant with a gun in his hand, asking for all the cash."
One of the most difficult things for me to deal with as a criminal defense attorney is the lack of cultural understanding within the system. There are lots of reasons that our system is unjust, but this is one that is really hard for me.
The law is written by the representatives of the majority. These are people who have to weigh was is good, what is bad, and how to govern society as a whole. This is necessary and important work. But the world that I'm from is a minority world. The urban culture is a whole different culture, where survival is dependent on presenting an invincible image, where my safety depends on whether you're more afraid of me than I am of you. The urban culture does not mesh well with the majority culture. On so many levels, what is required of an urban person for survival is against the law.
Setting aside questions of morality (like whose culture is morally correct), this creates a situation where my clients can never win. They will not survive their home life or their neighborhood walks without acting in one way. But acting in that way sets them at odds with the law. As a result, they face the attendant financial and social penalties that further separate them from the majority culture.
Going back to the father in my story, I wouldn't be surprised if the father is right, that the only way he can prevent his son from going criminal is to physically discipline his child. In his culture, this is the only way to communicate discipline. Is it ideal? No. Is it causing the child damage? Maybe--I don't know because I wasn't there. But the father's reaction may be the lesser of many evils that are possible. I don't advocate for situational ethics. But I do wish that there was some way that the father's perspective could be legitimized. He has very real fears and concerns that society is not helping him to solve in a socially acceptable way. So he's left with a domestic violence charge on his record, hundreds of dollars of court costs that he's unable to pay, and a criminal record for violence.
Is this really justice? I understand the need for rules and laws that govern societal behavior. I understand the desire to protect children from abuse. In fact, I'm a huge advocate for that in many arenas of my life. But I do want to cry out against the perception that just because this is what the majority has deemed correct, the people who choose to do otherwise for their own good reasons are somehow different than "us". He's just the same as everyone else. Many times criminal behavior does not indicate that someone is a reprehensible or morally stunted person.
One of the most difficult things for me to deal with as a criminal defense attorney is the lack of cultural understanding within the system. There are lots of reasons that our system is unjust, but this is one that is really hard for me.
The law is written by the representatives of the majority. These are people who have to weigh was is good, what is bad, and how to govern society as a whole. This is necessary and important work. But the world that I'm from is a minority world. The urban culture is a whole different culture, where survival is dependent on presenting an invincible image, where my safety depends on whether you're more afraid of me than I am of you. The urban culture does not mesh well with the majority culture. On so many levels, what is required of an urban person for survival is against the law.
Setting aside questions of morality (like whose culture is morally correct), this creates a situation where my clients can never win. They will not survive their home life or their neighborhood walks without acting in one way. But acting in that way sets them at odds with the law. As a result, they face the attendant financial and social penalties that further separate them from the majority culture.
Going back to the father in my story, I wouldn't be surprised if the father is right, that the only way he can prevent his son from going criminal is to physically discipline his child. In his culture, this is the only way to communicate discipline. Is it ideal? No. Is it causing the child damage? Maybe--I don't know because I wasn't there. But the father's reaction may be the lesser of many evils that are possible. I don't advocate for situational ethics. But I do wish that there was some way that the father's perspective could be legitimized. He has very real fears and concerns that society is not helping him to solve in a socially acceptable way. So he's left with a domestic violence charge on his record, hundreds of dollars of court costs that he's unable to pay, and a criminal record for violence.
Is this really justice? I understand the need for rules and laws that govern societal behavior. I understand the desire to protect children from abuse. In fact, I'm a huge advocate for that in many arenas of my life. But I do want to cry out against the perception that just because this is what the majority has deemed correct, the people who choose to do otherwise for their own good reasons are somehow different than "us". He's just the same as everyone else. Many times criminal behavior does not indicate that someone is a reprehensible or morally stunted person.
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