Innocent? - So What!

Tonight on '60 Minutes' there was the incredible but believable story, about a black Chicagoan who was falsely arrested, convicted, and imprisoned for the past 26 years, for a crime that he did not commit.

The incredible part is, that there were two lawyers representing a defendant in another case, who knew he was innocent because their own client confessed privately to them to the crime for which this other man was falsely accused of.

Instead of promptly notifying the authorities who were about to try the innocent defendant, they kept the secret on the specious premise that what their client told them was confidential and privileged. So they let him be tried, convicted and jailed without saying a word in his defense.

What jumps out at me, is that the innocent defendant, had the misfortune to be born black in a racist society with a racist criminal justice system, as was the guilty defendant. In this system, they don't care much about which black defendant is guilty or innocent, so long as they have black defendants who they can convict and imprison. So they kept the secret of his innocence, and in so doing, obtained the convictions of two black men, one very guilty and one very innocent.

There is no doubt in my mind that had the innocent defendant been white, they would have under no circumstance, let him be tried, and certainly not convicted nor jailed. No excuse of privileged information or anything else would have prevented them from doing the right thing, and freeing an innocent white man.

But this system was never designed for justice for black men. Any justice accorded is due to the herculean efforts of dedicated lawyers like those of the Innocence Project, who have worked mightily to free the many mostly black prisoners, who are innocent and have been unjustly convicted and imprisoned. In most cases they have had to waste away for years until the science of DNA matching, caught up with the system.

In this case, DNA was not a factor, but it might just as well have been, since they waited 26 years until the guilty defendant finally died, while jailed for another crime. So now they are belatedly stepping forward to clear the innocent black man they cavalierly let rot in jail all these years. Thanks a lot!

I believe that there is a hell, and these two lawyers along with the guilty party, will have a special place there in the next life. The sad thing is that this is just one of hundreds, maybe thousands of examples of innocent convictions, jailings and probably even executions, that have been perpetrated against the powerless and less fortunate by the justice system.

When will 'justice for all in the land of the free and the home of the brave', finally be a reality for everyone, rather than just for some?