Justice Gone Bad!

John is currently in a coma at a Seattle hospital after being mistaken for a suspect in a stabbing in which John had no part in. While attempting to apprehend John, one officer tackled John into a concrete wall, even though John had no signs of any resistance.

Ken was attacked by a police dog, mistaken for a person riding a moped without a helmet that fled from police, not only did the dog attack him, but when he attempted to get the dog off him, officers began beating him, now Ken can't work and is disabled for life.

Theresa was riding her bike one night without lights on her bike, when police officers out of uniform and in an unmarked car started pulling up to her and did not identify themselves began yelling for her to stop. She got scared and retreated to her house, where the officers broke down the door and began beating her.

Brian was convicted for illegal contact of a minor. Receiving a mistrial from a jury deadlock in the first trial, the prosecution attempted a second trial, this time with made up testimony in order to get a conviction. After six years in prison, Brian was released. It later surfaced that the information given was false and Brian had spent six years in prison while being innocent of the charge.

A judge rushes a man through trial without a lawyer, the man is sentenced to seven years in prison for a robbery he didn't commit; in fact all it would have taken was a phone call. At the very moment the robbery was taking place, the accused was two states away actually in an appointment with his probation officer. Nobody stopped to verify this information, and the probation officer didn't care enough to challenge the accusation. It took a college student in law school to get the information and research it for a project he was doing. Even after found innocent and spending three years behind bars, it still took the state an additional two months to get the paperwork settled so he could be released.

In another state a defense lawyer is being appointed to a case. The first words from the lawyer to the accused, "I can defend you, or really defend you, if you know what I mean?"

In a prison not far away a female is being sexually assaulted by an officer; just down the street from there in a court room a person is requesting a change of sentence, and when asked to provide proof and does, the judge throws the book back at him, and states "I don't have the time to read that, Denied"

Several states over, a prosecutor is suggesting to the believed victim to destroy any evidence that could help the accused, and be used against the prosecution.

The next morning somewhere a police officer is writing a police report making up lies of what he actually said and did in the arrest.

Later that afternoon a police officer stops a car, citing a traffic violation that doesn't exist in order of hoping to find something else that could lead to an arrest. When nothing is found, the police leaves without giving a citation for something that is not illegal.

The next state over, a prison guard beats a prisoner for making a comment. A few states over from that, a man is being put to death, while being innocent of the charges.

I would like to say these are rare cases, but they are increasing by the thousands, that's right, not hundreds, but thousands. Rarely do such cases go to court or are even recognized by anyone. Most people within the legal system attempt to stay in the box, knowing if they go outside the box it could have enormous consequences from fellow officers etc, leaving a huge backlash with revenge against them. Because of this, the problem continues to escalate.

Judges these days are anything but partial. Many of them were prosecutors before becoming a Judge. If you think the state has check and balances for these injustices like my examples, you would be mistaken the majority of time. Occasionally they do something, but compared to the amount of abuse, they do very little. In fact less than one percent do they ever notice, and even those are limited to multiple counts. In all these cases I have listed except for the sexual abuse case, no officers, judges or lawyers were ever punished or even charged with anything, but in every case listed, lawsuits were filed and huge sums of money was paid out do to negligence or behavior of officers or the court system. However, in my opinion, money does not account for the loss, and it certainly does not make the behavior acceptable, besides it cost taxpayers millions per year.

The problem is that innocent people are being wrongfully convicted or injured by brute force. But even the mildest act, like riding a moped without a helmet, or a bike without a light, leads to injury, why? In both of these cases, neither person fought back, but was beaten anyways and one was totally innocent. We can look at several other cases, take one with a person having schizophrenia urinating outside, where officers beat him after he ran from them. He died while in jail. The officers felt if they took him to the hospital they would end up in trouble for the severe beating they gave him. None of the officers in this case got in trouble for their actions, even after the community joined to demand the officers resign.

Not only are these things a huge problem, but some of the laws to begin with are becoming ridiculous, for example in many cities, people are not allowed to be homeless. Sorry to say, that many of them do not choose to be. Many of them have mental problems and have no source other than living on the streets, than there is you can't sleep in a car law. We have seen many and many ridicules laws being put in place each and every year that are just not realistic in thought.

We can't just worry about the innocent being wrongfully convicted or abused, but how about those that are guilty being released because of this type of abuse. It hardly seems fair that an innocent man is put behind bars while a guilty person is released, but we have all seen it. Although I will tell you in my studies innocent convictions far outweigh the guilty being found innocent. Yet if you watch TV movies and hear gossip you would think the other way. In my opinion TV is the leading cause of this mis-conception.

Excessive force is the name of the game as well, for an example an officer confided with me, that in severe cases or circumstances, they were told to not let the accused go to court, but to take the matter into their own hands and if possible, kill them, maybe that is why a person with schizophrenia who had a sword from about twenty yards away from the officers was shot eight times, even after he had dropped the sword after the first bullet hit him. All witnesses said the police didn't have to shoot at all, yet alone shoot him eight times. Nothing happened to the officers in the case either.

Not bad enough yet? Still undecided about the direction of our justice system. Here is a case that will really make you sick, and it cost one additional person their life. Portland Oregon. A couple was convicted of a string of murders involving young women. The problem was; they were innocent.

Like many serial killers they are often proud of their accomplishments; and in this case the convicted people where being recognized for killings that the serial killer had done, he was deeply offended that someone else was getting the credits for his kills.

The killer need I say, took great offense to this, after all, in his mind it was an insult. So he called the prosecutor's office and was transferred to the lead prosecutor's voice mail. The killer left the message that it was he who killed these people, not those convicted. He gave details only the killer would know, including something left at a rest area in Montana, but the prosecutor ignored the voicemail, because he had already convicted two people for the murders.

After leaving several messages and getting nowhere, the killer decided to go to the press, so for a whole week, the paper ran articles from what the killer sent them. The prosecution ignored the newspaper articles and maintained they prosecuted the correct people.

Finally the killer figured out what to do. Portland being on the border of Washington. He would kill someone and throw them on the Washington side, than he would get the respect he deserved for his killings. So one evening he killed a young girl and threw her on the Washington side. Washington quickly responded, following all the tracks the killer left wanting the recognition of the killing. Washington arrested and convicted him, but Oregon's prosecutors failed to acknowledge the convicted person in Washington had killed the people in Oregon, because they had already convicted others for the murders. Finally Washington gave up attempting to persuade Oregon prosecutors to release the innocent people so they decided to take Oregon to court in order to release the innocent couple. Luckily Washington won and the innocent people were finally released.

In my opinion, the prosecution cost the life of one additional victim out of neglect, but Oregon didn't see it that way, instead they boasted how good their prosecutors are. "They are so good, innocent people can be found guilty." If it was up to me, they would have been fired and brought up of charges for aiding murder against one person. After all if we know something and let it go, we can be charged has an accomplish to the crime, but not if it's the law itself, that just doesn't apply to them, they are above it and everyone else is beneath them.

I looked at several cases of those convicted and later was found innocent. I reviewed case after case in the last four years when I had the time. I could easily see a trend of abuse somewhere in the system from either, police, prosecutors, judges, and defense lawyers. Most defense lawyers were spending what appeared less than 30 total minutes with their clients while representing them

I reviewed additional cases, only to find out that of the 200+cases I studied, it appeared innocent people being convicted compared to guilty being found innocent was about five to one.

I also discovered as I reviewed cases where police officers were found guilty of some form of abuse, that only about seven percent of them were released from their jobs. Another one percent was brought up on criminal charges; out of that one percent, less than half was convicted and in a few cases, officers won the right to have their jobs back, some even received back pay while being reinstated.

If that wasn't bad enough, disciplinary action of suspension was less than ten percent. The majority of officers are never found to be guilty of abuse, even though witnesses often state otherwise. Review boards inside most cities that evaluate these things, are often made up of the same type of background as the officers they are reviewing. Once again I refer to "in the box". Take John in Seattle for an example, more than likely John will die. The police have already been cleared of any wrong doing, even after witnesses testified stating "it was not justified", also a camera captured the whole thing, and it was very clear that the officer was out of line in his actions.

While reviewing records, cities that were smaller around 25,000-75,000 seemed to abuse the laws in court room procedures, while bigger cities of 500,000 or more seemed to have more police brutality percentage wise. In my studies, I found that California had more problems than other States in both police conduct and poor defense, while smaller states like Oregon had more problems with prosecutors. Other States that were noticeable were Arizona, Louisiana Mississippi, and Texas. These States often did not allow defense lawyers, rushed the accused through courts, and had severe punishment over the traditional guidelines, including death sentences to those later found innocent, police abuse was also high.

My studies didn't just stop at arrest and court, but what happened to people once in jail, prison or on probation. I found probation officers often abusing the system as well. For example, showing up at people's work for no reason, pulling them from the job, searching their vehicle while they were at work, taking them from the job and searching their place and then getting them fired, only to charge a probation violation for them losing their job, or making sure they have some other violation, often what appeared to be lying in order to get the person back in jail or prison.

When I started this project I had certain expectations, but when I began researching I was astonished by what I found and it changed my belief about a system that I was brought up to think was the best in the world and always fair.

I found anything but in my research. I didn't expect to find for example that the average defense attorney spends about fifteen minutes with their client. I didn't expect to see prosecutors make up more charges than they actually had in order to plea bargain to a sentence longer than the legitimate charges. I didn't expect to see Judges abusing the system like they did.

I did expect to see guard and police abuse, so there was no surprise there, and I really didn't have any opinion on probation officers.

One day after reviewing all of this, a thought occurred to me, Innocent people being found guilty is like collateral damage in a war. It's a means to an end, thus we accept it, fair or not, after all, life isn't fair, so those that are innocent, found guilty, is just part of greater plan to help in the concept, that the guilty shall also be punished in due process, isn't it worth their sacrifice? just like war, when you bomb and kill people, and yet claim the reason you are attacking in the first place, is in order to save and help the people of the country; the vary people you are killing with your "Collateral" damage. Have we no shame in recognizing that the very system that was designed to keep these people safe; is the same system that not only failed to protect them, but destroyed them from the life they were living.