Arrests and Court Punishments Don't Always Reflect Reality
The social, legal suffering people endure may not be based on fact and truth
A natural public thought is often, that person must have terrible character and be a stain on society, when someone says something nasty about them in the court of public opinion or the police and courts wrongly punish them. What if, however, it’s a believable falsehood taking place that society readily accepts as factual, true and reality? Because that happens way more than we presume.
The police and the courts not only don’t always get it correct, they can act unethically indifferent about wrongdoing or purposely engage in it despite the costs to people who are either not guilty or whom are innocent. There are only rare punishments to the legal system: police officers, judges and all court personnel.
Injustices are suffered daily, on both a grand and smaller scale. Most are hidden in the dark, away from the public eye. The costs are multiple and extreme to those impacted and those who love them.
The following, reported by CBS News, is not unique:
“An Alaska Native man who maintained his innocence in the 1997 killing of a white teenager has agreed to an $11.5 million settlement with the city of Fairbanks after alleging police acted with a racial bias in a case in which he and three other Indigenous men spent nearly two decades in prison.”
How did this originally happen, no course correction taking place and then the wrongdoing lasting “nearly two decades?” We have to ask those hard, critically-important questions and sit in the discomfort and truth of it all.
“Marvin Roberts is the last of the so-called Fairbanks Four to reach a settlement with the city after their murder convictions were vacated in 2015. U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason dismissed the long-running civil lawsuit against the city and police officers on Thursday at the request of the parties involved.
"I don't think any amount of money will be enough to justify what I endured as an innocent man in prison," Roberts said in a recent statement released by one of the law firms that represented him. "This settlement, however, gives me freedom with my life, and most importantly, more time with my daughter and my parents, who supported me throughout this nightmare."
A society that tolerates this type of police and judge malpractice and corruption is willfully engaged itself in a sickness of immorality and injustice.
Oftentimes, collectively, we don’t mind it until it either affects us, loved ones or someone whom we find a sympathetic-type “character.” We have become too far removed from compassion for people who are exploited and suffer at the hands of people in authority who are not deserving of authority, power and trust because their rotted character and behavior shows that they are not ethical, moral and credible.
Until there are severe punishments for legal authority and power, regularly administered, daily injustices and pain unjustly inflicted on others will be the norm in the United States for people whom are not guilty or whom are innocent.
These professionals are the last line of defense, entrusted with the responsibility of getting it right. “Human error” or corruption is not an explanation that can be accepted.
When social, psychological, legal, incarceration, financial, mental and physical consequences and punishments become the norm for police and judges too, we will begin to witness more care, detail, precision, accuracy, ethics and moral practices as the rule and a respect for the full moral responsibilities of the work that they do.
Michael Toebe is the specialist at Reputation Intelligence, helping individuals and organizations with matters of credibility, trust, decision analysis, communications, relationships and reputation.
You can DM him on Substack or contact him below for consulting, risk analysis, coaching, ongoing advisory, a variety of proactive and responsive communications and reputation (not legal) representation.
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