Where Are The Advocates for Justice?
In 18th Century England, a hungry, homeless young lad could be hanged for the crime of stealing a loaf of bread. Thank all the stars in heaven that we live in more civilized, enlightened times. Where justice is fairly meted out in full consideration of all the parameters of civilized mores. Where violence and crime is arrested by the apprehension of social deviants who must stand trial and be judged by their peers, then they must pay for their crimes by sentences that reflect the crimes they have committed.
What can one say about the indisputable, lamentable fact that there remain miscarriages of justice. That the very justice system that is put in place to protect society and keep us safe and secure still is capable of victimizing people, handing out sentences that do not really reflect the severity or lack of, the crimes committed. If there exists glaring instances of miscarriages of justice, they can be found in what should be considered the most unlikeliest of places; the United States of America, for example.
Where two black women, sisters with no record of previous illegal activities or convictions, stood trial on a charge of an armed robbery that netted them US$11, were found guilty as charged, and each sentenced to two life terms in prison. As of this date they have each served sixteen years for their unspeakable crime of robbing two men who were driving them to a nightclub in northern Mississippi in the year 1993.
Mississippi governor Haley Barber has used the authority vested in his office to free the sisters from the state prison where they have lived in incarceration for the past sixteen years. They have been freed on condition that the younger sister, aged 36, donate a kidney to her older sister who requires dialysis filtration due to failed kidneys. They have emerged, smiling and jubilant from the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility.
There is something peculiarly incongruent with a justice system that metes out such atrociously harsh justice. There is a certain level of un-humanitarian arrogance in a governor who cannot recognize that injustice and fails to release two black women from their unjustly severe incarceration without equivocation.
Hiding behind a veneer of righteousness to release Gladys and Jamie Scott as though they would not of their own accord in freedom choose to take an action that would benefit them both sans state intervention.
What can one say about the indisputable, lamentable fact that there remain miscarriages of justice. That the very justice system that is put in place to protect society and keep us safe and secure still is capable of victimizing people, handing out sentences that do not really reflect the severity or lack of, the crimes committed. If there exists glaring instances of miscarriages of justice, they can be found in what should be considered the most unlikeliest of places; the United States of America, for example.
Where two black women, sisters with no record of previous illegal activities or convictions, stood trial on a charge of an armed robbery that netted them US$11, were found guilty as charged, and each sentenced to two life terms in prison. As of this date they have each served sixteen years for their unspeakable crime of robbing two men who were driving them to a nightclub in northern Mississippi in the year 1993.
Mississippi governor Haley Barber has used the authority vested in his office to free the sisters from the state prison where they have lived in incarceration for the past sixteen years. They have been freed on condition that the younger sister, aged 36, donate a kidney to her older sister who requires dialysis filtration due to failed kidneys. They have emerged, smiling and jubilant from the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility.
There is something peculiarly incongruent with a justice system that metes out such atrociously harsh justice. There is a certain level of un-humanitarian arrogance in a governor who cannot recognize that injustice and fails to release two black women from their unjustly severe incarceration without equivocation.
Hiding behind a veneer of righteousness to release Gladys and Jamie Scott as though they would not of their own accord in freedom choose to take an action that would benefit them both sans state intervention.
Labels: Justice, societal failures, United States
posted by Pieface @ 5:47 PM
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