Note: In this post, I will discuss several recent high profile criminal cases and will express some of my viewpoints about them. Feel free to disagree and to leave comments, but crying out loud, don’t go nuts and firebomb my blog. I’m all for a good debate, but keep it civil, folks.
Not a day goes by without a news report about someone accused of breaking the law in some manner. Sometimes it’s a well-known politician or celebrity and sometimes it’s just an average citizen. Some of these cases disappear quickly while others become national news, polarizing the nation. Regardless of the case, as soon as we hear about the case, we almost always immediately decide right then whether or not they are guilty.
. It is precisely this trait of deciding a person’s guilt or innocence before actually being tried for their alleged crime that I want to talk about. We assign our verdict with such fervor that the person in question is forever a marked man. They will never again be able to lead a normal life. But it is the verdict of the court that should matter, not that of society. All you need to do is look at the Witch Hunts of Europe and Salem to see what that accomplishes: innocent people being imprisoned or executed. Our justice system was set up in a way that was meant to prevent exactly that. It is far from perfect, but it is at least better than the systems used in the past in that we have strict laws and regulations to dictate how we try a person.
Our courts use evidence and reliable witness testimony in order to aid twelve peers in deciding the guilt or innocence of a defendant. But what happens when we don’t agree with their verdict, especially in an instance where the defendant was acquitted? Look at the Casey Anthony trial from last year; she was charged with and later acquitted of murdering her three-year-old daughter Caylee. From day one, most of the nation was completely convinced of her guilt, despite the distinct lack of any evidence to tie her to the murder. Everyone believed that she’d be found guilty and was completely shocked when she was acquitted; I personally took the opposite view, realizing that the only evidence against her was purely circumstantial and that no decent judge or jury would convict based on that.
The outcome of the trial was something I hadn’t seen since the O.J. Simpson trial back in 1995. People became furious. Some threatened to kill her. Social media outlets exploded with rage at her acquittal. Even the jurors had to fear for their lives; thankfully, the judge refused to release their names. But why were people so polarized in the first place? Murders unfortunately happen every day, but very few of them become national news. So how did this go from a tiny spark to a raging inferno?
I can answer that in three words: the news media. The news media jumped on this story as a way to garner ratings. Like any other television program, news programs need ratings in order to keep airtime and funding from the network. Due to a phenomenon known as Missing White Woman Syndrome (I won’t go into it here, but Wikipedia has a great article on this completely racist and sexist phenomenon), stories like this are like a pile of gold for news media. But it goes deeper than that. In order to keep people watching, they will twist and manipulate the way the story is reported. Yes, they (usually) report the facts, but by reporting only certain facts and leaving out proper context, they can make a person look guilty as sin or angelically innocent. With the Casey Anthony trial, they reported in a manner that made her look guilty before she ever set foot in court. People wanted to see someone be guilty of this crime, even if it couldn’t be proven, and the media fed them out of the palms of their hands.
Perhaps a better example of this is the ongoing George Zimmerman case (strangely, this case and the Anthony case both occurred in Florida). Zimmerman, a member of his neighborhood watch association, is accused of murdering Trayvon Martin, a teenage boy who was walking through the neighborhood at night. The facts in this case are ambiguous at best, yet the media chose to portray Zimmerman as a racist bigot who was guilty of murdering an innocent boy; several news outlets were caught intentionally using old photos of Zimmerman that made him look like a thug and photos of Martin that made him look like a sweet young kid. Just as with Casey Anthony, everyone is already certain that he is guilty even though he’s only just recently been charged.
The problem with this behavior is that it works in a manner that is completely contradictory our legal system. Our legal system contains measures to prevent a person being declared guilty before they have a chance to defend themselves. But the way we are manipulated by the news media forces us to assign guilt prematurely and permanently; we believe that a person can never change, meaning that their life is destroyed forever, regardless of how they defend themselves. Casey Anthony was rightfully acquitted, but judging by the responses I’ve seen and read (I remember seeing CNN’s Nancy Grace so furious she was practically spitting) she’ll be lucky to find a job. Zimmerman will almost certainly face the same problems if he is acquitted (and I hope he is, because even though I believe he is guilty, there’s no evidence to support it).
But these problems extend far beyond the manipulation of facts regularly practiced by the media. Many of these issues come from the very laws that were broken, especially in instances where the person actually was guilty. It comes down to laws that do exactly what the media does with high profile cases: assigning a label that sticks like super glue, and labels are like sugary snacks to our society. For reasons I will not profess to fully understand, we prefer to look at only the surface of a person instead of what’s inside, and this is nothing new. In fact, this has been going on for thousands of years. Kings, Emperors and even powerful religious figures would label people enemies just for disagreeing and have them killed with no chance to defend themselves.
The behavior I’m talking about, while having the same psychological basis, has to do with average people, not those in power. Perhaps the best example I can give is actually from a work of fiction, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter”. In this story, the main character, Hester Pryne, is clearly guilty of adultery and is thusly forced to wear a scarlet letter ‘A’ upon her chest at all times. Throughout the story, Hester is ridiculed and scorned by everyone simply because she committed adultery. I do not condone such behavior, but I will not condemn a person for them either. The problem is that in such situations, people believe that person is forever the person who committed a misdeed; to quote Javert from “Les Miserables”, “Once a thief, forever a thief”.
While “The Scarlet Letter” and “Les Miserables” are both works of fiction, we can see such behavior in action every day. High profile cases like those named above are prime examples. We also see it in modern laws like those in “The Scarlet Letter”, laws that are overpowered and assign an unfair and permanent label, like current sex offender legislation. I’m not going to start railing against sex offender laws here, but I want to point out that they tend to inflame situations just as badly as the media does.
The sex offender label is one that forces people to automatically assume the absolute worst about a person. While there are those that do deserve such a label, the law is so broad and overpowered that the vast majority of people given that label did not deserve such punishment. More to the point, regardless of whether or not they deserved it, the label makes is completely impossible for them to reintegrate themselves into society; there’s not even any evidence that the label actually protects anyone. They, like those persons crucified by the media, are outcasts. They can’t find jobs, or even places to live. How can we justify treating people this way? How can we call ourselves civil while refusing to give people a chance to change?
Behaving in this manner is not only illogical; it’s also ironic and hypocritical. We look at people that we perceive to be guilty and believe that they will always be that person, regardless of what they may have done. But in doing do, we prove our own unwillingness to change. We’ve acted that way for centuries upon centuries, letting our perceptions guide us instead of searching for the truth of the matter. Such behavior may seem benign, but it has sparked violence and bloodshed countless times. Refusing to change is contrary to human nature; we require change in order to thrive (especially if you believe in chaos theory). Yet, in these situations, we actively fight against it.
Look back at your own life. We all change constantly. I’m not the stupid, naïve and immature boy I once was. I have grown and matured a great deal, though I freely admit I still have a long way to go. My point is that we need only look at our own past to know that we do change; believing that because a person committed an action once they are certain to repeat it rarely holds any merit. Yes, there are people with incurable tendencies toward despotic and illegal acts, but they represent only a small percentage of the human race. For the rest of us, as long as we learn from our mistakes, there is no reason to assume that we will repeat them (barring things like addictions, as that is an entirely different subject).
Learning from mistakes is, I believe, the key point here. I have always found that life’s most important and valuable lessons tend to come from examining the mistakes we’ve made. Legal situations such as those described above are always a direct result of mistakes; in fact, in such situations, both sides tend to make numerous, and often grievous, mistakes. If we learn from those mistakes, we can prevent them from occurring again. We can help to deter crime. We can stop automatically assuming someone’s guilt; after all, it’s innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around.
Life is hardly, if ever, fair, but prematurely judging a person is about the most unfair thing we can do. Unfortunately, it seems to be somewhat of an instinct in us, likely a product of some ancient self-defense mechanism. But we no longer face the dangers that created that instinct. It’s no longer needed. By prematurely judging people, we are actually creating new dangers; as I’ve noted above, it breeds resentment at best and violence at worst. I’m certain that virtually everyone has been a victim of such judgment at least once in his or her life. Maybe you were bullied as a kid. Perhaps you were involved in some embarrassing incident. Put yourself in those shoes once more, but increase the negativity people feel towards you by a few hundred percent and you can then see why we cannot keep going this way. By continuing to single people out, we make it impossible to become truly unified, something we’ve consciously fought against since the dawn of humanity.
Instead of continuing to jump to conclusions based on knee-jerk reactions, I suggest we all start thinking a little bit more each time one of these situations rises. Let’s do a little bit of research instead of relying solely on hearsay or the media. Living in the digital age makes this more important than ever, as anyone can write a blog or even an entire website devoted to their point of view (yes, I recognize the fact that I could easily be considered a hypocrite by even saying this). But so many blogs and websites are devoted entirely to flaming someone or something. I’m not saying that the media or the internet are out to disillusion us or make us believe lies, I’m just saying that we need to use an iota of common sense before making up our minds.
We all possess great intelligence, so let’s use it.
I’d like to end this post with a note about my views on our legal system. As you can no doubt tell, I am very opinionated about certain legal issues, but I don’t tend to feel this blog is the right forum for those opinions. That being said, I am planning to start a new blog wherein I will voice my views on new cases and laws as I see fit. This blog will still be updated, but I will likely not be quite as political as I have been. Stay tuned for updates.
