The Law and Justice

THIS BLOG WAS WRITTEN IN JANUARY, 2015.

 

            I was reading John Grisham’s latest legal thriller and it got me thinking about my own law career. Back in the ‘80s – was it really that long ago? – I tried cases; big cases, small cases it didn’t matter. I loved court. I loved the energy and the jousting, the intellectual combat. I loved having jurors smile and nod in agreement; I loved winning and often, too often really, winning came easily and mattered more than justice.

            Grisham’s novel, Gray Mountain, is set in the far southwestern corner of Virginia. It involves coal companies and poor Appalachian mountain folk, and little hamlets nestled in hollers. It portrays the enigma that is the law. It is more than good versus evil. And, it reminded me of the days so long ago when I thought winning mattered above all else.

            I was bright, outgoing and idealistic. I wanted to argue and write about cases that would change the world. But marriage and a house payment and dozens of other compromises led me to a mid-size firm. I cut my teeth, so to speak, driving from Knoxville to Harlon, Kentucky. Our firm represented a number of coal companies. I’d drive into the coal fields and see men, working men with nails black from the mines and arms and hands scarred and gnarled from real labor, and I’d “discuss” their black lung claims – me in my pressed white Oxford shirt and three piece wool blend, gray pin-striped suit. I’d fight them over a few thousand dollars in benefits before returning to my office and my cute, perky secretary. Then, I’d drive to Chattanooga and help a developer who’d figured out how to manipulate Federal urban development block grants into hotels with attached city-rented parking garages. It was all legal and it was so far from where I dreamt I’d be.

            My first jury trial: Two weeks after admittance to the bar I’m in the Knox County Circuit Court. My client, an obnoxious, arrogant VT grad student. One Friday night after returning home from a date with the daughter of one of our firm’s biggest estate clients, ol’ James decides to drink a couple of tall boys with a joint or two. Later, he climbs in bed not realizing he’d left a smoldering butt between couch cushions. A neighbor saw the smoke and crawled across the fire escape to beat on the bedroom window. James made it out. The apartment was a mess.

            So, the estate client calls the senior partner who calls me at home with a new assignment. “It’s an insurance claim,” he tells me. “They’ll negotiate. Help the kid out for Mr. F.” As I said, my client was a real piece of work. “I’m not paying for the damage,” he tells me. “I don’t have any money.” The insurance company hires a lawyer, a lovely, proper woman who was a year ahead of me in law school. Her father, coincidentally, was a Federal Judge.

            “Larry, we are willing to reduce the demand from $21,000 to 12,000, all payable in monthly installments over five years.” The apartment building owner didn’t want problems with VT renters. But my client turned the offer down. “Fuck em,” he told me. “What do I care if they go to court?” Like I said, a real charmer.

            I started preparing for trial. I had no business even putting on a defense, but I did … I discovered something in the scene photos – no smoke detectors. I learned from the fire marshal they’d been taken down a week before the fire so the unit could be painted.

            Trial comes and I get to pick a jury: mostly older women like my grandmother. And I’m polite and ask nothing as all the evidence comes in about the fire damage. The owner testifies about the building repairs. My turn.

            I show him the scene photos of the wall without the smoke detector and he admits they were taken down. I move in for the kill. I read into the record the code sections requiring smoke detectors.

            “This young man could have died because you didn’t think the detector needed to be rehung … You violated the law and this young student has lost everything!”

            I sound like a Baptist preacher. My questions are rhythmic, my voice raising and lowering in a cadence. The owner is stammering and red faced.

            Then, my client takes the stand and he becomes “Eddie Haskell” –

            “Yes sir. I coughed and wheezed and thought I was going to die.”

            The women in the jury box looked on with eyes of sympathy and concern. “I lost everything.” The jury took less than an hour to reach a verdict: nothing for the apartment owner. My client, James, was awarded $3500 (his lost property) and another $3000 in punitive damages. And me? “The law provides legal fees for housing law violations.” $10,000 in fees came my way.

            Law. Justice. It was right in the law, but it wasn’t justice. The apartment owner was a decent man and I made him look like a money-grubbing, heartless bastard. And my client? He was so busy getting high and drunk that he almost burned an entire building down.

            “Great result Larry. Mr. F is pleased.” Me? I wondered if that’s why I went to law school. I handled dozens of cases like that. I watched families disintegrate as I argued about assets in divorce cases. I defended bank directors who ignored the recklessness of management and destroyed investor value. I could argue either side of a case … and I could win. The law was just that: an arena where winners and losers were determined.

            “A man’s respect for law and order exists in precise relationship to the size of his paycheck.” The Reverend Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., of Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church said that. I think of those words often in here. Reverend Powell was on to something. We tend to espouse a lot of flowery words about the law when we’re on top. Get caught up in its gristmill, however, and our respect for, our love for, the law decreases.

            I wasn’t yet in high school the first time I saw “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Harper Lee’s novel, perhaps the best American novel ever written, was required reading in my upper income, all white middle school. We read about Scout, Jem, and Dill and Boo Radley. We read about Atticus Finch, southern lawyer, father, decent human being. And then the movie. I sat spell-bound as Gregory Peck portrayed Atticus. “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view – until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

            I watched Atticus’s impassioned defense of Tom Robinson, a defense which exposed the shame of the Jim Crow South. Atticus believed in justice and the power of the law. No scene stayed with me as much as at the conclusion of the trial a weary Atticus Finch turned to leave the courtroom. In the balcony, in the “colored” seating area everyone rose. “Stand up Scout, your father is passing by,” the black reverend told Atticus’s daughter. It was a scene of respect that my generation of law students etched in our minds. The law mattered; being a lawyer was noble.

            Atticus was the last true lawyer hero. Today, it isn’t justice we see, its law. Too often the law becomes a tool to incarcerate, to violate, to humiliate. Justice is like a waterfall spraying; law has become like a stagnant pool. I see the bad side of the law every day in here. And, I wonder how often those in power – prosecutors, judges, corrections employees – think about Atticus Finch’s admonition, “until you climb into his skin and walk around it in.”

            The smartest lawyer I ever met was a young woman from the hills of east Tennessee. She was brilliant and gifted; she clerked for both the DC Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court then returned to Knoxville and practiced with me. One day she and I were at lunch and she announced she was leaving law practice to pursue a doctorate in Elizabethan English.

            “Why?” I asked. “You’re great at the law.” She looked at me with sad eyes and said, “There is no beauty in the law; there is no truth in it; there’s just heartache and money.”

            You know what? She was right. We spend way too much time idolizing “the law” and its ability to enable society. Instead we should focus on justice which is merciful, rehabilitative and restorative.

            What would Atticus say about our love affair with legalism, litigation, and retribution? I think I know.

John Retracted

            John Grisham, author, lawyer, social commentator, found himself in the middle of a mess the other day. The irony is that Grisham has made himself rich with his mastery of words. Yet here he was apologizing, retracting, and correcting what he had said. What was all the fuss about? Grisham, in an interview with “The Guardian,” was discussing America’s seeming love affair with over sentencing of so many white-collar and non-violent crimes. “Judges have gone crazy,” he said. So far, so good. After all, Grisham is a well-known advocate for sentencing reform (his nonfiction bestseller, “An Innocent Man,” more than any other, convinced me this nation’s appetite for use of the death penalty was fraught with errors.).

            No, Grisham screwed up because he personalized sentencing overreach to a case involving a friend of his. “I have a friend,” he began. This friend’s life was unraveling. He was drinking heavily. One night, according to Grisham, while the friend was alone and drunk, he “double-clicked” onto a website with young women. “They all looked over thirty,” Grisham told the paper (I wonder how he knew?). A few weeks later his friend answered his door to find the FBI knocking. He was hooked up in a joint Royal Canadian Mounted Police/FBI child pornography sting. “My friend received three years. His life was ruined and he didn’t hurt anyone …”

            “He just “clicked” …” I hear that a good bit in here from almost every child porn offender. “I just stumbled across it,” they’ll say. There was a guy here – computer genius – who vented to me one day that it wasn’t “fair” that a judge gave him ten years for “accidentally” coming across child porn. The problem for him was (1) he knew computers, inside and out, and the porn was deep on his hard drive, lots of it; and (2) the police didn’t just stumble over his one-time viewing, he was marketing the disgusting stuff. So, his “victim” anger at the judge and system was just another guy refusing to say “I did it. I’m sick” (or “I’m sleazy”).

            But Grisham? I want to take him at his word. I want to believe in his friend’s drinking problem as motivation for his behavior because I know all too often criminal investigations aren’t about truth, they’re about convictions. And there’s another reason I want to believe Grisham. He’s standing up for his friend. Let me tell you, you royally screw up, you find yourself on the wrong side of those bars, you watch everyone and everything you care about peel away, and then in the wreckage of your life there are those very few who say, “I’m here for you;” I guess you have to experience it to know what I mean.

            Friends. I have friends who were there at the jail. When the stories hit the paper, when rumors flew, they were there. They took up for me, they defended me, they cared for my family, they prayed for me. And the day I was sentenced they were there with me and they told the court I was a “good man.” No, I respect Mr. Grisham’s defense of his friend and his understanding that sending his friend to prison neither makes society safer nor fairly punishes for the offense. Prison should be reserved for the worst, most violent. Sending to prison the vast majority of those who end up here just creates more problems and does nothing to address the underlying criminal conduct.

            Where Mr. Grisham screwed up was calling child pornography a “victimless” crime. Those children photographed were exploited. They are victims. And candidly, there may not be such a thing as a “victimless” crime. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. The company I worked for took in over $200 million a year. “What’s $2 million over twelve years?” I would rationalize my behavior on more than a few very bad nights at the jail and receiving units. It was always worse when I’d meet a child pornographer doing eight years, or a rapist doing ten. “How can this be fair?” I would wonder. No, there were victims to my thefts: my family and friends who I let down; people at work and the community who relied on me; my employer who trusted me.

            As I said earlier, I want to take Mr. Grisham at his word because his advocacy for changing this broken, corrupt system matters. Until you come in here and see how dysfunctional all “this” is, how it is nothing but a money pit, how it sucks the life out of the offenders, their families, and the community at large. You can’t begin to comprehend what a mess all this is. It does no one any good. You never see what goes on in here until you find yourself on the wrong side of the fence or you know someone on the wrong side.

            A few years ago, John Grisham wrote a powerful OpEd calling on the then Virginia Governor (and now convicted felon) Robert McDonnell to commute a woman’s death sentence. His words struck me deeply and I sat down and penned a letter to him to express my appreciation. Grisham’s intentions were well placed. His compassion and concern for his friend, and his understanding that America’s reliance on prison for millions of nonviolent offenders as well as our over criminalization of hundreds of behaviors cannot be ignored. What Grisham has to say about justice in America is correct. I only hope we don’t miss the truth by a few misplaced words.

The Force of Wilber

I have been reading “Amazing Grace” this week.  It is the extraordinary true story of British member of Parliament William Wilberforce who led his nation to abolish slavery.  It is remarkable that this one man, by the sheer force of his faith changed his entire country’s view of what morality, what righteousness, truly means.
Most people know the story of the Hymn “Amazing Grace”.  British slave ship captain John Newton watches as his ship is crushed against the rocks off Hatteras during a hurricane.  He is convinced he will die, drowning in the churning waters of the Atlantic.  His life, he realizes, has been a complete mess.  He calls out to God.  And God hears and delivers this loathsome retch.  The song doesn’t immediately come.  Newton has to figure out what “it” all means.  Why did he survive?  He comes to understand how broken he truly is, but even broken he is not beyond God’s amazing life altering grace.

William Wilberforce as a young boy met the “saved” John Newton and through that friendship would use his faith to lead the British people in a new direction.  As author Eric Metaxas notes: 

“Americans have an outsized tendency to romanticize the past…life in eighteenth-century Britain was particularly brutal, decadent, violent and vulgar.  Slavery was only the worst of a host of societal evils that included epidemic alcoholism, child prostitution, child labor, frequent public executions for petty crimes, public dissections and burnings of executed criminals and unspeakable public cruelty to animals.”

English society during Newton’s and Wilberforce’s days was, simply put, immoral.  But before we get too comfortable thinking “that’s not us,” consider the following from the author commenting on how the British allowed such social immorality and evil to exist in their society.

“Just as most Americans today have never visited a slaughterhouse to investigate the grim details of how large animals become the shrink-wrapped frankfurters in their supermarkets, nor have witnessed the degradation and violence of life among the two million people incarcerated in our prisons, so most Britons went about their lives with no idea of the universe of horrors that existed….”

William Wilberforce believed God intended people to live in a different way than in the brutality of life he saw in British society.  And, it wasn’t just words with him.  He was a wealthy, carefree young man who suddenly had an epiphany, a life altering moment.  He was never the same.  He began living frugally, donating his wealth to the less fortunate.  And, he spearheaded abolition.

By the force of his faith Britain went from a degrading, course, violent society to one where decency became common place.  It didn’t happen overnight and it wasn’t easy.  Wilberforce had to fight the conventional wisdom of his day, particularly the Church of England which, the author notes, “was little more than a pseudo-Christian purveyor of government sponsored institutionalized hypocrisy.”

No one today would even attempt to argue that slavery is somehow justified.  Yet, before we get smug about how far we’ve advanced, consider the current state of our society.  How much different are we really from eighteenth century Britain?

The United States incarcerates more people in sheer number and per capita, than any other country in the world.  All those despots, all those tyrants together couldn’t come up with two million people in prison.  Even China, with one billion plus citizens does not have two million incarcerated people.

And, the prisons are abysmal.  They are filthy, violent, degrading places.  They are filled with many people suffering from mental illness and substance abuse problems.  The American prison system is deplorable, immoral and without any redeeming social value.

We, as a nation, pride ourselves on our national morality.  Many people often claim we are a “Christian” nation.  Well to be Christian implies we are “Christ like”.  I have repeatedly posed the question in this blog “What would Jesus do/say?”  Would Jesus have raised an American flag and shouted “USA” when he heard that OBL was shot?  I don’t think so.  Nor do I think Jesus would look at the current sate of America’s prison system (I refuse to use the Orwellian term “corrections”) and say “you’ve got it right America.”  Somehow I think He would tell us to love, forgive and show mercy; three things that are in terribly short supply in this nation, in this world, in each of us.  Like the example He set with the adulterous woman, He would tell us to build a corrections system that measures the remorse and regret of the wrongdoer and “corrects” by knowing we are all wrongdoers.  We all deserve a second chance.

“Anonymous in Alaska” took me to task for comparing POW’s to inmates.  “POW’s were fighting for our freedom”, she wrote.  “Alaska”, criminality is in the eye of the injured.  Ask a German family their feelings as they sat in Dresden in 1944 as the entire city was incinerated by U.S. firebombing at a loss of civilian life in excess of the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  There was no military objective in that attack.

Ask the 100,000 Iraqi dead, “collateral damage”, in our “liberation” of Iraq if they think this country’s behavior was justified?  How about the Vietnamese women and children butchered at Mylar or just napalmed during a bombing run?  What reaction would you get from Native Americans to the massacre at Wounded Knee?  Read Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables.  Read Grisham’s The Confession.

What “Alaska” missed – what Newton and Wilberforce came to understand – is that we turn a blind eye to the evil and injustice that permeates our lives.  We hold ourselves out with self righteous pride about our goodness because we live our lives in a state of relative morality.  How else can a guy like me explain away being such a liar to the woman I love and took an oath before God to love, honor and cherish?  In relative terms, I was a pretty good husband, pretty good guy.  In truth – in the absolute truth of God’s judgment – I am a filthy, despicable sinful retch.

The amazing thing about that is God doesn’t give up on me or anyone else.  He calls us to live as He intends us to live; showing mercy, compassion, forgiveness and love.

That’s the epiphany John Newton had on that sinking slave ship.  That was the driving force behind Wilberforce’s campaign.  That is why I rail against prisons and pray each day for my ex’s happiness.  We all can do better.  Morality is not relative, and neither is grace.    

Blind but Now I See

It never ceases to astound me what insight I gain in this place. There are two men I’ve written about before who I have the highest regard for. DC, who has been incarcerated since 1972 and Ty, who has been locked up since 1980. Both men are simply decent, compassionate, gentlemen. While they both committed acts of violence that led to their imprisonment, neither deserves to still be here. Justice demands otherwise. Mercy demands otherwise.



I began reading John Grisham’s latest bestseller the other evening. The Confession is the story of an innocent man on death row. It is also the story of a young Lutheran minister who feels called by God to do something, anything, to stop the execution. It is the story of hypocrisy as church members, “good, Christian” men and women miss the fundamental message of their professed faith.


What would Jesus do? I asked in a recent blog the rhetorical question what kind of director of corrections would Jesus be? Throughout much of these past two and a half years I’ve read and prayed and tried to understand what God requires of me. What was I to do with my life after I so badly mangled it up to this point?


I thought about my own church involvement. I was an active member of my church, but I was a lousy Christian. Then again my church wasn’t much better.


After my arrest my own minister refused to visit me at the jail. He didn’t want to get caught up in my marital and legal troubles. With the exception of a close friend who’s a member of the congregation and an elderly farmer who testified on my behalf at my sentencing, not one member of my church “family” has even stayed in touch with me.


Even though I’m still a member, my birthday is left off the calendar. The new minister has never written me or visited. Not one member of our church family ever suggested to my then wife what Jesus taught about marital love and commitment.


As the young man on death row confessed to his loss of faith, the Lutheran minister stated “God’s people are often wrong Donte! But God is never wrong. You can’t blame Him.”


What would Jesus do? I’ve watched with much bemusement as talking heads on both sides of the aisle offer sound bites about the tragic shooting in Arizona. I’ve heard much about the victims and still more about the twisted mind of the shooter. Here’s what I didn’t hear: God loves the young man who did this horrible thing – what’s more, He expects His people to love him as well and show him mercy and forgiveness.


What would Jesus do? Would Jesus approve of the death penalty? I doubt it. Would Jesus approve of Virginia’s “corrections” department? I don’t think so.


Fact is, I’ve come to understand that most of what we consider as characteristics of successful church membership and citizenship has absolutely nothing to do with being a Christian. In fact, our mileposts of “good living” are contrary to what the Lord requires of us.


I believe Jesus judges us by the kindness in our hearts, the love, compassion, mercy and forgiveness we show. Under that standard my friends DC, Ty, Saleem, Big S and thousands of other incarcerated persons would be free. “Then neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.”


Yesterday morning with tears rolling down my cheeks, I said my prayers in the silence and darkness of the building. For the first time since my divorce was final, I thanked God for all that has happened to me since my arrest. God wasn’t responsible for my arrest, I was. God didn’t divorce me. My wife did. God has loved me every step of the way. Friends bailed out; my wife really didn’t love me, she didn’t believe in the vows we took, But God stayed with me.


I thought about the men I’ve met in here, thought about how my entire world view has been turned upside down.


I sat in the law library the other night at a loss to come up with the words to help a young man on his case. I don’t know where it came from, but I suddenly found myself typing out a section from the Gospel of John, trying to argue that we must look in a person’s heart, their soul to understand remorse.


Ty was working that night. In his deep, bass monotone he told me I was inspiring men here who long ago had given up hope. How ironic, I thought. The woman I loved – and still love – never once told me I was inspiring. My kids never felt inspired by me. I was just “there”. They’ve shown these past two and a half years I wasn’t that important in their lives. I’m sad about that, but so grateful for what I feel about them.


I read Paul’s conversion experience this morning, how he was struck blind then three days later could “see”. I love that imagery.


“I once was lost and now am found; was blind and now I see.” My eyes have been opened. God loves the incarcerated. He loves terrorists and terror victims. He loves the self righteous as they sit in their church pews on Sundays. He loves my ex-wife even though she divorced me and He loves me even after stealing $2 million.


He loves and forgives us all. What would Jesus do? Look around and tell me. We all could do better. God always does His best.


I may be wrong, but I think He’d tell you to work for justice, end suffering, forgive, reconcile and love. Pretty simple, straight forward message. Like most things with God, it all comes down to seeing things His way.

End of the Line

I was watching PBS the other evening and a story came on the show “Frontline” about the conviction and release years later of the “Norfolk 4”. It was a story of dishonest police tactics, the despair of prison, yet the amazing capacity of humans to survive. I thought immediately of a favorite song of mine from 1989, by the Traveling Willburys. The song, “End of the Line”, is an up tempo ballad featuring Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty and George Harrison.



One verse in this song about getting through life until “judgment day” went:


“Well its alright
even if they say you’re wrong
well its all right
sometimes you gotta be strong”.


The story of the “Norfolk 4” should be a sobering reminder that just because the powers that be say someone is guilty doesn’t make it so. It is the story of four young sailors from the USS George Washington who were accused and convicted of the brutal rape and murder of a Norfolk woman. An overzealous detective lied, coerced and threatened all four men. A jury believed the Commonwealth’s case even though the police knew DNA testing of all four men cleared them of involvement. That evidence was withheld from the four defendants.


All four spent almost twelve years in a high security level Virginia penitentiary before being released by executive act of the former Governor.


Unless you have been on the receiving end of a police interrogation you cannot imagine the deceit that is used. It is not about “getting to the truth”, it’s about finding someone to convict. Thousands of men and women are wrongly convicted each year in this country.


John Grisham has a new bestselling novel out called “The Confession” that is a stinging indictment of capital punishment in Texas. The book is selling well, but will it make a difference? Will the public finally give a damn about justice and force states to reform police practices, the courts and prisons?


I remember a conversation I had with my wife a few months before my arrest. She reminded me (during a heated debate about terrorists) that on our first date I told her “its better that a thousand guilty men walk free than one innocent man be executed”. I looked at her like she was nuts. “One life, small price to pay for safety.”


I was wrong in my later opinion. No innocent person should ever have to see the inside of a prison. Justice requires more. Justice demands perfection when a person’s liberty, his freedom, is at stake.


We claim we accept as a basic tenet of American justice “you are innocent until proven guilty”. Fact is, from the moment a person is arrested and the weight of the state begins to pressure you, and the story is released to the newspapers or TV, perception that the person is guilty begins to grow like a giant wave.


Ask the security guard wrongly accused of setting off the bomb at the Atlanta Olympics; ask the Duke Lacrosse players; ask the Norfolk 4.


Laura Hillenbrand, author of the book “Seabiscuit” has a new bestseller out called “Unbroken”. It is the true story of Louis Zamperini, a navy flyer shot down in the Pacific. He survived 47 days on a leaky raft only to be captured by the Japanese, imprisoned and tortured.


It is the story of him overcoming imprisonment, alcoholism and bitterness by finding his faith, forgiving his captors and living a wonderful life.


Consider the accused. Keep an open mind. Look in your heart for what justice really means. Demand perfection from the system. You never know when you or a loved one will be on the receiving end of the criminal justice system.


As the Willburys said “sometime you gotta be strong”. There is strength in real justice, not retribution or vindictiveness, but true justice. And true justice demands what happened to the Norfolk 4 should never happen again.

John's Opinion

I read an Op/Ed piece by John Grisham in the Sunday, September 12th Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/10/AR2010091002673.htm). Grisham wrote about Teresa Lewis the only female inmate on Virginia’s Death Row, who is scheduled to die on September 23rd (NOTE: Teresa Lewis was executed by lethal injection on September 23).l



She’s to be executed for the brutal murder of her husband and stepson. She clearly was involved. She, her boyfriend and another man decided to kill the husband and stepson (a National Guard member with life insurance) for money.


The two men did the killing. Both men accepted pleas for life sentences. Lewis pled guilty but was sentenced to death. Testimony at her sentencing indicated she had no criminal record, an IQ barely above 70, a dependent personality disorder and an addiction to pain medication.


Grisham notes so many inconsistencies in the meting out of the death sentence in Virginia that it “mocks the idea that ours is a system grounded in equality before the law”. I say “you go John”!


I’ve never been a big Grisham fan. I’ve read a good number of his novels and they’re an easy read, entertaining and light. He’ll never be confused with Dostoevsky. However, when I was in DOC receiving I read his nonfiction account of an innocent man on Oklahoma’s death row whose conviction was overturned. It blew me away.


I’ve come full circle on the death penalty and the criminal justice system. On our first date, I told my soon to be wife that I thought it better that 1000 guilty men go free than one innocent man be executed. I was idealistic, not yet in law school. I believed the law brought about right results, lawyers were hard working, judges fair, juries impartial.


All that changed, gradually, over the years. Safety and security became paramount. And so did the moral high road I trudged, or told people I trudged. Criminals were bad, evil. “Lock them up.” I accepted black/white answers and eschewed gray areas. And, if a few innocent people were imprisoned or executed, that was a small price to pay for safety, for order. I bought comedian Dennis Miller’s idea that “sometime the herd needs to let the sick and crazy wildebeest get eaten by the lion for the good of the herd”.


Then I got arrested and became exhibit “A” in my own production of “Man Was I Ever Wrong About That”. Folks, the criminal justice system is broken. It is unfair, evil and does more to create crime and disrespect for the law than it does to correct and prevent it.


I will go so far as to issue a new moral imperative. You cannot consider yourself a moral, ethical person and support the abomination that is the United States criminal justice and prison system in 2010.


Fyodor Dostoevsky, perhaps Russia’s greatest novelist and moral commentator, spent seven years in a Siberian labor camp in the 1850’s. He wrote the following: “A society’s morality is judged by how it treats its prisoners”.


What Grisham points out about the Lewis case goes beyond capital cases. It applies to every criminal case, every trial, every sentence. The prisons have become a toxic wasteland with mentally ill inmates pressed against evil, predatory ones. Virtually no programs exist to rehabilitate; society shuns those who do their time the right way. Incompetence and dishonesty among the prison staff is rampant.


Yes, criminals need to be punished. And yes, there are some acts that require society to put a person away for life (the recent trial in Connecticut is a prime example), but for the vast majority of cases the system does more harm than good.


As John Grisham notes, Teresa Lewis doesn’t deserve to die. The majority of inmates in Virginia don’t deserve the sentences they are serving or the conditions they’re living in. Society has a moral obligation to do better, to be just.