The Innocence Project is asking everyone interested in real justice in this country to support a Senate bill to create a Congressional committee to study needed reforms (S.714). Please read the press release dated May 20 by clicking here.

I’m of two minds on this issue—or maybe many minds. On the one hand, S.714 quite correctly points out the need to publicize and study a number of serious problems in the U.S. justice system, including:

• the absurdity of the United States having the largest prison population in the world, most of whom are incarcerated on minor charges such as drug possession
• the role of DNA evidence in false convictions
• the fact that prison sentences are becoming more and more lengthy and that the severity of punishments varies greatly from state to state
• the role of Mexican drug gangs in the rising crime rates in several cities and states

The bill also notes that “blue ribbon panels” are not best-suited to study this issue. Experts on such panels are not legislators; they are not representatives of the people; they should be consulted and called to testify but not asked to decide what needs to be done. This, I think, is a rare bit of wisdom from the U.S. Senate.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a great deal of confidence either in our current clutch of elected representatives at the state or federal level, and I’m not sure the federal government is authorized to reform state legislation except through the Supreme Court.

And, too, there’s the problem that the Congress is already too busy making mischief and spending the future wealth of this country to take on an exhaustive study of any issue.

The Simple Solution—The Innocence Project Can Do It Themselves

An organization, such as the Innocent Project, has it within their power to solve this problem by selecting a number of convicts who are currently incarcerated as a result of the botched justice system and suing the states in which they are incarcerated. The Bill of Rights provides that failures in due process should be brought before the Supreme Court. The Supremes have the ability to declare most of the stupid practices of the state courts unconstitutional.

“Cruel and Unusual Punishments”

If lawyers in this country would screw their heads on straight and study the language of the Bill of Rights for what it is (18th century English), they would understand that a “cruel” punishment is one that is irreversible and an “unusual” punishment is one that is not uniformly applied to everyone convicted of the same crime.

Then they would sue the states for routinely executing people—an irreversible punishment.

They would also sue the states for sentencing some drug users to life imprisonment because of the “three strikes” laws while other drug users are sentenced to public service.

Grand Jury Indictments

If lawyers in this country would screw their heads on straight they would understand that the Bill of Rights explicitly prohibits state prosecutors from charging and trying people for murder without a grand-jury indictment.

Due Process

If lawyers in this country would screw their heads on straight they would sue the states for violating the due process clause every day when they try juveniles as adults (a clearly unconstitutional practice, which also goes against the entire history of common law and due process in Western civilization).

Mexican Drug Gangs

S.714 correctly seeks to publicize the growing problem of Mexican gangs in American crime. What I don’t understand, though, is why the U.S. Senate thinks it needs to study this at taxpayer expense. It’s obvious. Every voter knows about it. And a real and substantial majority of Americans also know that the cause is our open southern border.

“The historical and possible future role the military can play in crime prevention efforts at the federal, state and local levels”

S.714 apparently includes the rather creepy assertion that the military can play a role in crime prevention. I hope this phrase does not suggest that we need to look to Nazi Germany as a role model. I have great respect for the U.S. military, but I do not want the National Guard to repeat Nixon’s mistake at Kent State University. In case you weren’t born in 1970, students at Kent State University who were protesting the war in Vietnam were shot down by National Guardsmen.