Justice Gone Awry

A judge I spoke with recently told me that without the use of plea bargaining, where a deal is reached in which a defendant receives  a lesser sentence in exchange for a guilty plea, the courts would be hopelessly backed up with more cases than they could handle.

When a defendant is actually guilty, I can see such an arrangement saving time and court costs and perhaps living up to its name as a “bargain.”  But when a defendant is not guilty, should he or she, while under oath to tell “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,”  feel coerced into giving up their right to due process that might exonerate them, simply because of the threat of receiving a dreadfully long prison sentence?

It reminds me a little of a practice once known as "tavern justice," where the attorneys on both sides of a case would get together with the judge over some ale the night before a trial and work out some kind of agreement without the defendant actually being present. They would then go through the motions of a hearing the next day with the outcome already determined.

A sobering case of injustice that made national news earlier this month involved Cornelius Dupree Jr., who on the basis of DNA testing (made possible by the Innocence Project), was finally released after spending 30 years in a Texas prison. 

Dupree had refused to plead guilty when convicted at age 20 in a Dallas rape and armed robbery case because he knew he wasn’t guilty--even though that would most likely have resulted in a lesser sentence. And as a model prisoner he had several opportunities to make parole if only he would admit he was a sex offender. For example, in 2004 he was all set to be released, but he was told he would have to attend a sex offender treatment program based on "four R's," recognition, remorse, restitution and resolution. He couldn't get himself to agree to even the “recognition” part, knowing he hadn’t committed the crime.

After his release, a dozen Dallas men who had also been exonerated after having served a collective total of over 100 years of time for crimes they didn’t commit came out to celebrate his freedom. In each of their cases, like Dupree’s, they were convicted on the basis of eyewitness misidentification in a police lineup, a common cause of wrongful conviction.

And might Dupree’s original sentencing also have been influenced by his race? There is no way to know for sure, but according to an article in the February, 2011, Sojourners magazine, there are more African-Americans in prison or on probation and parole than the total number that were enslaved just prior to the Civil War. And while people of all colors use and sell illegal drugs at similar rates, African-Americans are ten times more likely than whites to go to prison on drug charges.

To add to a list of concerns about our justice system, the Human Rights Watch organization recently estimated that there were currently three times the number of people who are mentally ill in U.S. prisons there are in U.S. mental health hospitals. Given the emotional stress a prison environment creates for even mentally healthy people, imagine what it must be like for  people with paranoia, a bipolar or anxiety disorder, or suffering from clinical depression.

In graduate school I remember once having to meet in a small, narrow classroom where a large marker board took up most of the wall space at the end of the room from which the professor spoke. One day the board in question was badly tilted, with one end being lower than the other by at least six inches. I found myself so distracted by that crooked, askew marker board in my view that before the hour was over, I felt nauseous.  My world was not square and upright in the way I was used to.

Which reminds be of a plumb line the Biblical prophet Amos once used as an illustration of his nation’s loss of integrity. She was no longer acting in conformity to the standard of divinely inspired justice. She was off center, leaning away from the plumb line of  uprightness and integrity, favoring the rich at the expense of the poor, the powerful over the powerless, the haves over the have nots.

When that happens, we should all become sick to our stomachs, and actively join the prophets in calling for “justice to roll on like a river, and righteousness like a never-failing stream.”

P. S. As a dedicated supporter (and board member) of Gemeinschaft Home, a residential re-entry and recovery program in Harrisonburg, I invite you to join me in becoming a "Friend of Gemeinschaft" by writing a check of $50 or more and mailing it to Gemeinschaft Home, 1423 Mt. Clinton Pike, Harrisonburg, VA 22802. Or you can contribute online at http://www.gemeinschafthome.com as a way to personally help recovering people get a new start.

Thanks for your help!  

P.S. Here are the lyrics to one of my son's recent songs on the subject: http://www.bradyoder.com/songs/jury-duty

Guilty Of Mental Illness--Justice Watch #1

Rockingham Court House

"Justice Watch" is the first of what will be an occasional account of justice gone awry. I have posted frequent examples previously, but not with this label. Feel free to let me know of any cases you would like aired, with good documentation for accuracy, of course.

Janice (not her real name), is being held at our local jail for a probation violation, having been intoxicated and in possession of a firearm (not her own). Single and in her mid-thirties, she appeared in court yesterday to ask to be released on bond to live with her grandmother while awaiting trial and to get some much needed treatment for her mental illness.

"My mind is all messed up," she had told me at a recent jail visit, "and I've got to get some help. And being here in jail is terribly stressful for me. All most of the other women in my cell talk about is getting high or getting drunk. I don't need that. And I can't sleep."

Janice, diagnosed with bipolar disorder, major depression and generalized anxiety disorder. is on a cocktail of medications she's not sure are really right for her. "Sometime I think my meds are making me worse," she said.

Janice was initially found guilty of using illegal drugs and for being intoxicated in public. She has never committed any crime that make her a danger to anyone but herself, has never sold or given drugs to anyone else. She is in jail primarily because she has an addiction and is mentally ill.

Her recent use of a firearm was in an attempted suicide. She felt an extreme sense of despair, she told me, although she has only a vague memory of what actually happened on the day she tried to kill herself.

She appeared in court in handcuffs and shackles, wearing the obligatory and unsightly red and white striped jump suit. Aside from a condescending remark about her being "highly emotional" and engaging in "pressured speech", the judge treated her with respect and dignity.

Everyone, including the judge, agreed at yesterday's hearing that she was not a flight risk and would show up at her court hearing set for a month from now. But the attorney from the Commonwealth's Attorney's office insisted that more should be known about whether her aging grandmother, living in a one bedroom apartment, could provide the kind of supervision Janice needed, in spite of her attorney's assurance that another aunt was also willing to help and that her pastor and others from her church would do all they could to provide the support she needed until she was able to get into Arbor House, a local treatment center where she could get some much needed psychiatric care.

Yesterday's verdict puts her back into the most stressful environment imaginable, confined to a jail cell with other inmates who are likewise getting no treatment for their addictions or their emotional problems.

Our local jail is clearly not a therapeutic place for anyone, especially not someone who needs psychiatric help.

“I Have Been Dealt an Extreme Hand of Injustice”

Yale law professor John Langbein      

     I received the following letter from a prisoner at the Augusta Correctional Center after he had read my Open Forum piece on plea bargaining, “Justice Gone Awry,” in the Daily News-Record:

Dear Pastor Yoder,

My name is Mr. Ashley Jefferson Grissette #1143033, and I have been dealt an extreme hand of injustice.

My original home is in Lumberton, North Carolina. I came to Virginia and promised myself that I was going to straighten my life out before I move back to NC. This was in 1996, and I’m still in Virginia in trouble with the law again.

I have a pretty extensive criminal record dating back to North Carolina in the mid-80’s. There is nothing pretty about my criminal history and I’m not proud of it, but I do take responsibility and own up to it. I did a lot of dumb and stupid things and my record reflects that I paid the price by spending most of my life in jails and prisons.

There is also another side of me that loves to work hard and believes in honor. Drugs and alcohol contributed in large part to my extensive criminal history. I now have documentable employable trades in which I am certified.

After being released from doing a little over three years on my last sentence, my former employer gave me another chance, and immediately hired me the very week I got out. I was released in September of 2009 and stayed in a homeless shelter until I saved up enough money to move out and rent a room.  I have enclosed a letter from my employer with the Virginia Pump Company in Alexandria that was written on my behalf for the court.

I was out for six months doing everything that I was sure would keep me out of prison until that day in February, 2010, when I went to visit my probation officer and was arrested for credit card theft and credit card forgery. The police told me that they showed my probation officer photos from the store’s surveillance cameras and he said he thought the black man using the stolen credit cards might be me.

After holding me for thirty days they released me, then arrested me again in March. Both times they searched my house and found nothing to link me to these crimes. While I was confined in jail awaiting trial, my defense attorney had tried to talk me into pleading guilty, but I refused to do so. He told me that by refusing a plea bargain that I had got the commonwealth’s attorney mad.

After I sat in jail for five months, the commonwealth seemed to realize they didn’t have the right person for the crime, but instead of letting me go, she had the lead detective in the case take her to one of the locations where the alleged credit card fraud took place to get a witness to identify the suspect by way of a photo line-up. I have enclosed a copy of the police report which states how the photo line-up turned out and how the Commonwealth’s Attorney implicated me as the suspect.

I wish I could get the press involved so the world could see how I was arrested and sentenced to 18 years just because I possibly resemble an African-American they allege to be using a stolen credit card on video surveillance.

The bottom line this. This last time when I got out I didn’t get back on drugs and I know that for once in my life I’m in the right. I have written to a few Innocence Project organizations, but they don’t want to get involved with cases that don’t involve DNA testing.

I am 46 years old now and it would really benefit me to spend the next 12 years working at a job so that I can have something when I get older. I thank you for your time with this matter and, most of all, I thank God for his help.

Sincerely,

Ashley Jefferson Grissette 1143033
St. Brides Correctional Center
701 Sanderson Road
P.O. Box 16482
Chesapeake, VA 23328

Here's a link to some additional posts on prisons and criminal justice http://harvyoder.blogspot.com/search?q=jails

Latest Marriage/Divorce Score: 972 to 427

Rockingham County Court House

Every January since 1996 the clerk of the local Circuit Court kindly provides me with statistics of marriage licenses issued and divorces granted in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County in the previous year.

Since our population has increased significantly in the past two decades one would expect a steady rise in marriage numbers, but that isn't the case. Those numbers have been flat even though our population has increased by some 25% over the past two decades.

That hardly means fewer couples are pairing up, but simply that we have ever more people hooking up and breaking up in undocumented (common law) relationships. Unfortunately, we have no record of how many of cohabiting couples go through their own "divorces", with consequences just as distressing as those experienced by their legally married counterparts.

With fewer registered marriages we should also be able to expect fewer registered divorces. But that isn't true, either, as you will see below:

Year           Marriages     Divorces

1996            873                 387

1997            950                 405

1998            964                 396

1999            932                 405

2000           947                 365

2001         1003                438     (most annual marriages

2002           976                 421

2003           961                 399

2004           959                 437

2005           889                 381

2006           929                 389

2007           925                 434

2008           950                 405

2009           903                 347     (fewest annual divorces)

2010           879                 358     (fewest annual marriages since 1996)

2011            933                 433

2012            995                 445

2013            924                 484     (most annual divorces)
2014            972                 427
 

Given the fact that every divorce, documented or otherwise, profoundly impacts not only the couple involved, but the lives of parents, siblings, friends and especially any children involved, the number of our neighbors scarred by dysfunctional marriages and destructive divorces each year is incalculable.

I'm not prepared to make a cause and effect case here, but I can't help but note that as the percentage of adults who marry has steadily decreased relative to our population, the number of inmates in our jail has increased by over 500%! Of course that is much more likely a result of a criminal justice system gone awry than anything else, but neither mass incarceration nor more and more family breakups are signs of a truly healthy community.

Click here for additional posts on divorce.

Here's the graph to the year 2012:

Here's our population growth:

Local Marriage/Divorce Ratio: 955/474 in 2015

Rockingham County Court House

Every January since 1996 the clerk of the local Circuit Court has kindly provided me with statistics of marriage licenses issued and divorces granted each year in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County.

Since our population has increased significantly in the past two decades one would expect a steady rise in marriage numbers, but that isn't the case. Those numbers have been flat even though our population has increased by some 25% over the past two decades.

That hardly means fewer couples are pairing up, but simply that we have ever more people hooking up and breaking up in undocumented (common law) relationships. Unfortunately, we have no record of how many of cohabiting couples go through their own "divorces", with consequences often being just as distressing (if not more so) as those experienced by their legally married counterparts.

With fewer registered marriages we should also be able to expect fewer registered divorces. But that isn't true, either, as shown below:

Year           Marriages     Divorces

1996            873                 387

1997            950                 405

1998            964                 396

1999            932                 405

2000           947                 365

2001         1003                438     (most annual marriages)

2002           976                 421

2003           961                 399

2004           959                 437

2005           889                 381

2006           929                 389

2007           925                 434

2008           950                 405

2009           903                 347     (fewest annual divorces)

2010           879                 358     (fewest annual marriages since 1996)

2011            933                 433

2012            995                 445

2013            924                 484     (most annual divorces)
2014            972                 427
2015            955                 474

Given the fact that every divorce, documented or otherwise, profoundly impacts not only the couple involved, but the lives of parents, siblings, friends and especially any children involved, the number of our neighbors scarred by dysfunctional marriages and destructive divorces each year is incalculable.

I'm not prepared to make a cause and effect case here, but I can't help but note that as the percentage of adults who marry has steadily decreased relative to our population, the number of inmates in our jail has increased by over 500%! Of course that is much more likely a result of a criminal justice system gone awry than anything else, but neither mass incarceration nor more and more family breakups are signs of a truly healthy community.

Click here for additional posts on divorce.

Here's a graph showing trends to the year 2012:

Here's our population growth during that time:

Clarification: Marriage numbers include those who come here from another county or state to marry, whereas divorce numbers include only the breakups of residents of the City or County. However, it seems logical to assume that a roughly equal number of residents marry in other jurisdictions as marry here from other communities, so in my opinion the numbers above should be reasonably valid for comparison purposes.