Well, I had thought I had left penology behind, but a recent incident in Florida leads me to take one last crack at what we have become as an American culture, and, sadly, as way too many Christians.
The story of William Dillon is a nightmare of injustice. That is how the article begins in the Florida Today newspaper. Mr. Dillon was convicted of a capital crime 27 years ago. It is just too bad that he did not commit the crime. As is becoming all too frequent, DNA testing found him to be innocent of the crime last year and he was released. So, what went wrong? Well, the typical police and prosecutor drive to convict someone of the crime is what went wrong. If you remember my series on prisons, I commented that our current cultural justice system pushes both police and prosecutors to find someone guilty of the crime. Particularly prosecutors do not get re-elected unless they have a high conviction rate. The public does not give the prosecutor any points for saying that a person is innocent and that he/she can find no one to try. And, sadly, despite the increasing number of totally innocent people who are released, we still have people, too many of them Christian, arguing that we have the best justice system on earth. It is an article of faith that may not be questioned. Proof to the contrary is irrelevant. Any attempt to revise the justice system is attacked as being soft on crime.
Another way to say it is that too many Christians have bought into the idea of “collateral damage.” A few innocent people in jail is a reasonable price to pay to ensure that the truly guilty are not released say they. (And, yes, I have had people write that to me.)Â Now, I happen to be a veteran. I do realize that in war collateral damage is inevitable. That is what makes war so horrid. No soldier, sailor, airman, who is sane, wishes to fight a war. You lose too many friends and you kill too many innocents. War may be inevitable sometimes, but no serious Christian sees it as anything but horrid and to be avoided if at all possible. But, collateral damage is not acceptable in civilian life. The conviction of even one innocent ought to call us to re-evaluate to see where we went wrong. Sadly, all too many prosecutor’s offices immediately begin a “cover-up” operation when an innocent is found in jail.
But what makes this case particularly horrendous is the way in which the State of Florida has handled it. Normally, a person falsely convicted is given reimbursement to make up for the years in jail and the destruction of their hopes and dreams. In the case of Mr. Dillon, he should have been owed over a million dollars. Except for one small problem. When he was 19, he was arrested for a DUI and found in possession of a controlled substance. He was given three years probation and a fine, which means a minor amount of controlled substance. But, uhm, he was arrested for the capital crime while he was still on probation. So the law of Florida makes him ineligible to receive compensation. Imagine that! Twenty-seven years in jail for a crime he never committed, but he is told that because he did not have “clean hands” he cannot be reimbursed.
You see, those good people here in Florida felt that if a person had a record then he/she was unworthy of reimbursement, even if he/she was falsely convicted for a crime whose punishment was way beyond any crime they had previously committed. That is, if you have ever committed a crime in Florida, regardless of how minor, the state gets a free pass to convict you of a major crime and remain immune from having to reimburse you. Now, think about that. Behind that thinking is that a criminal is always a criminal. Behind that thinking is the idea that if you have committed even one crime, regardless of how small, then you should be punished and considered a lesser person for the rest of your life. Behind that type of thinking is the idea that even one crime removes any rights you might have. And, so, when the law was passed to give reimbursement to those innocents falsely convicted, an exception was written in for those convicted of any crime whatsoever. I suppose the assumption was that they were not innocent, even if they were innocent of the crime for which they were falsely convicted.
Sadly, there has been no Christian commentary on this situation, no outcry, no inward reflection asking ourselves whether our attitudes have molded themselves excessively on this culture of unceasing judgement. Rather, there has been a silence so profound that, as the saying goes, one can hear the crickets chirping. May the Lord raise up some John and Samuel Wilberforces to call us to what is correct, not simply to what is expedient.
[Later edit: One quick solution would be to pass a special bill giving compensation to Mr. Dillon. Then the question of the “clean hands” requirement could be taken up the the Legislature. However, though Mr. Dillon was released last year, not one state representative has been found to sponsor such a bill. All of them are too afraid that their potential opposition in a future election will accuse them of being soft on criminals despite the fact that Mr. Dillon was innocent of the crime for which he was sent to jail and despite the fact that his only prior conviction was not considered serious by the system. And, in a southern state full of Christians, a state in which some major Christian ministries have been headquartered in the past, not one Christian voice has been raised to either question what has happened in this case or to question the “clean hands” requirement. Were Christians in Florida to not have been heavily involved in politics, I could understand. But, as we all know, Florida is a battleground state, and many Christians have been overtly involved as Christians in politics. And, yet, no voice is raised here, as Christians, in favor of this innocent man. Lest you think this man is an exception to the rule, he is the second man in the last five years, in this county, to have to fight for compensation after serving multiple years for a crime he did not commit.
It is this failure of Christians to speak up in this area that has me so worked up. Somehow to talk about the rights of the accused is a liberal issue. Somehow to talk about the rights of those falsely imprisoned is a liberal issue. Somehow to talk about defending innocents, other than babies in the womb, is a liberal issue. As Orthodox Christians, coming out of a heritage of suffering under Muslims and Communists and Nazis, coming out of a heritage of people who wrote books such as The Brothers Karamazov and The Gulag Archipelago, we should be among the first to speak up about cases such as this one. But, again, the silence is overwhelming.]
When I hear some of my friends and relatives talk about “those evil people over there” it breaks my heart. They are doing such violence to themselves.
Penology is just like a good war. Like nations we can silence all the internal strife by externalizing the conflict and artificially unifying our divided self for the war effort.
Thank you for your thoughts on this.
I agree, this is sick, and I get pissed off from stuff like this. I don’t know what to make of the lack of Christian response other to say that most of us seem to be living in the spirit of the age on certain topics. Justice, American style, is SOOO engrained into our beings that we can’t even imagine anything else. We’ve been told our whole lives that our system is not only right, but the best in the world.
The imagery of orange jump suits (replacing black & white stripes), cell bars, Adam 12, dropping the soap, etc., are constant reminders that things are the way they should be. To use marketing terminology, our justice system sure has “branded” itself well.