The recent news conference by the North Carolina Attorney General and by the Duke Lacrosse team should saddened and wake us all up about justice in this country. Millions of dollars on their defense to now be totally cleared and to now have the Attorney General say, they were innocent. One of them said something very profound, yet so simple and true: something like, "Could you imagine what would have happened to us had we not had resources and been able to fight this." And then he went on to say, it happens in America all the time.
Examples abound. I have a good friend whose son has just been offered 6-10 years in prison. I'm not totally sure that I have all the facts straight but the significant ones I do. The son has not been a paragon of morality. In some ways, a typical young early twenties type. Mostly his transgressions have been wrapped around drugs. And, trust me on this, drugs are much more pervasive in our society than the average person is anywhere close to believing. I see parents all the time who don't have a clue as to what their children are involved in. On a recent PBS program called Addiction, it spelled it out. And, on the music video program, MTV, which was quite unusual, they showed a history of drug use from the sixties. I was amazed at how little it has changed--more sophisticated now and more pervasive.
So, my friend's son is all into the drug culture. Enter some teenagers to a party, the murky world of drugs and sex and from it ensued a correspondence between my friend's son and the girls. Alas, suddenly we are talking teenagers. Parents get involved. My friend's son and others are caught in the web. An overzealous prosecutor and police detective ignore the facts: the girl in question relatively exonerates my friend's son, they've never met or at least she doesn't remember him at the party. Enter lawyers, money spent, plea bargains and now a young 25 year old who has only relative guilt is about to become a victim of a criminal justice system run amuck. Think Duke Lacrosse team. Was the Lacrosse team innocent? Not totally as they did have a party and strippers showed. Is my friend's son totally innocent. No. Unfortunately, he does not have the money that the Duke Lacrosse team's parents have and so what will happen. Probably jail for him and a ruined life.
WHO IS TO BLAME? Well, many but for sure, one that rarely takes the heat and I don't understand: the judge. What do we have judges for? Are they so bound by rules that they can't use any common sense? In the case of the Duke Lacrosse players, it became evident early on that there was scant evidence and what there was was tainted. But, it went on and on and then entered politics. In the case of my friend, there's guilt in all directions but it is not easily determined. Where is the judge? Is there no common sense? Alcohol and drugs--what do we expect? Wake up and smell the roses.
Heaven help us. God bless America.
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