JUDICIAL BIAS IS REAL: WHERE’S THE JUSTICE?
/By: Joel E. Gordon
In this age of allegations of “lawfare,” judicial bias, and accusations of a two tier system of justice, confidence in our system of justice has quite understandably eroded in the eyes of many.
In addition to answering calls for service much of my time as a police officer entailed letting the community get to know me and working toward preventing criminal activity in my area of responsibility through my presence and community engagement. A frequent topic of conversation was why repeat criminals aren’t “put away” as if the police were somehow responsible.
When crime does occur it’s easy to blame the front-line police. In reality when crime occurs it is the responsibility of the police to bring criminal investigations to a conclusion which may or may not result in criminal charges. Officers must work through an increasingly complex maze of rules about engagement and seizure of evidence to make cases that are valid to the court. Then it’s up to our legal system to bring or validate charges and up to our judges to adjudicate same.
As I have previously addressed in past columns, how often do we see a violent criminal being let loose on society prematurely resulting in further violence and criminal acts? It is why the police seemingly arrest five percent of the population ninety-five percent of the time repeatedly for serious crimes.
When will we start to hold our courts accountable for their actions?
As our system has largely failed in holding violent criminals responsible for their actions, lacking incarceration due to bail reform and other progressive initiatives and views, and while disempowering law enforcement has further compromised safety, our courts are increasingly being scrutinized. The fact of the matter is that judicial bias is not new.
As far back as in the early 1980’s I had a district court judge say in my presence that all defendants were guilty in his eyes if arrested by the police. Conversely, I have heard a district court judge say in court that all police officers are liars meaning no case can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. The cases before these judges were not judged on merit. They were all pre-judged!
These judges when assigned to a district courthouse in the city of Baltimore did have a profound impact on the rate of crime. When guilty verdicts prevailed, street crime went down. Whenever the sitting judge who rarely entered convictions had a period where cases were heard by him, crime on the street in the surrounding community increased.
Another problem we all face is the reliance on government from revenue generated from court proceedings. Both in rural West Virginia and elsewhere I have seen instances in municipal and smaller town mayor’s court where decisions on innocence or guilt appeared to be rooted in revenue collection goals. Case facts seemed to be deemed irrelevant and legitimate mitigating circumstances were either ignored or denied.
We need to hold our courts accountable for ensuring that all live up to our rights and responsibilities and that our right to be presumed innocent is not infringed upon, nor our security and safety unnecessarily compromised upon determination of guilt beyond any reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty.
Have we been witness to the collapse of our system of justice which by design is the best the world has ever known? In practicality our system is only as good as the people serving within it. Common sense and justice should prevail. If only our courts truly reflected the motto of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation as so well stated… “That guilt shall not escape nor innocence suffer.”
Joel E. Gordon, Managing Editor of BLUE Magazine, is a former Field Training Officer with the Baltimore City Police Department and is a past Chief of Police for the city of Kingwood, West Virginia. He has also served as vice-chair of a multi-jurisdictional regional narcotics task force. An award winning journalist, he is author of the book Still Seeking Justice: One Officer's Story and founded the Facebook group Police Authors Seeking Justice. Look him up at stillseekingjustice.com
