OUR INJUSTICE SYSTEM

I have for most of my life held the believe that our justice system would provide justice under the law.
I myself have in some of my writings given voice to the voiceless or the underdog, often those who
are subjected to suppresion by the structures of power. This I did in my firm conviction that justice must prevail in the world. This is apparent in my two novels set in Hawai'i, where plantation workers are exploited by sugar and pineapple barons. The novels are: Sugar and Smoke, under the pen name Napua Chapman,
and Cane Fires, under my name, Joyce Lebra.

We have had numerous examples in recent years, however, of how our "justice system" operates to subvert justice and provide the opposite.. Most blatant was the O.J. Simpson trial a few decades ago, and we have the more recent example of the Zimmerman trial. What we see in many, if not most trials, is a game between lawyers, both prosecution and defense attorneys doying their best to win the game.

One example is in the novel, The Fifth Witness, by Michael Connelly,wherein the aggressive defense attorney is asked by his team assistant, "Do you believe she's guilty?" He replies, "That's beside the point," and in this trial the defense attorney's aggressive tactics succeed in getting his client off from a charge of murder. Later he realizes that in fact she was guilty and has gone free as a result of his efforts.

Or take the example of an actual case related in The Injustice System, by Clive Stafford Smith, again from the viewpoint of a defense attorney. An ethnic Indian was accused of a double murder in Miami in 1986.
This defense attorney employed every tactic available in the legal system to try to free the defendant,
whom he is convinced is innocent, but this man languished for over forty years in prison, part of the time
on death row. Here we see another example of manipulation of the law by a conviction-hungry prosecutor who witholds evidence and a judge who solicited bribes from the defendant. The victims in this case, depicted in court as respectable businessmen, had been laundering money for a drug cartel. After over forty years, the defense attorney saw no remedy for this hapless Indian defendant, who continued to be held in prison.

More recently we have the case of the Zimmerman trial, much in public view on the media for several weeks. In this case, the murder of an unarmed teen-age African American, the prosecution's pallid efforts were overcome by the effective tactics of the aggressive defense attorneys. Jurors were instructed by the judge not to use the phrase "racial profiling," though this was obviously what happened when Zimmerman, acting as an over-zealous neigthborhood watchman, followed the victim, accosted and shot him, even though police instructed him not to get out of his car.  Zimmerman was quoted as saying, "These people always get away with everything." Strict instructions by the judge led jurors to believe that they had only one option::to free  Zimmdfmzn.. Had I been on the jury I would have hung it, necessitating a further trial in the hope that justice might prevail in the end.

In general the system does not operate equally for prosecuting and defense attorneys. Prosecuting attorneys cannot be sued, whereas defense attorneys can be. Prosecutors are often over-eager to get a conviction,
which will advance political careers. It would seem that defense attorneys are at a distinct disadvantage in this situation. The attorney's game then proceeds under this unequal paradigm, in which defense attorneys attempt to prevail with this disadvantage.

For an African American, the only hope of success in a trial is generally if he or she has unlimited financial resources, as with O.J.Simpson. In fact, this is true with most individuals who become involved in a trial--the advantage goes to the person with the most money to hire the best, or most aggressive attorney.