Letters From North
America by Peary Perry
Someone
once told me that if
they ever have any
reason to appear before
any court of judge, they
didn’t want justice,
they wanted mercy.
After hearing of several
instances this week, I
am certain I tend to
agree with him and his
viewpoint. Try this one
on for size.
We all have seen
situations where men
have been locked up in
prisons for any number
of years only to be
determined to be
innocent after DNA
testing had been
completed. Obviously DNA
didn’t exist twenty five
years ago so it was
certainly possible for
some poor schmuck to be
tried and convicted and
sent off to the pokey
for many years to come.
Now, he gets his case
reviewed and the
evidence shows that he
could not have been
involved in the crime
and he gets set free.
But wait, what about
those lost years away
from his family, job and
friends? Well, in some
states the innocent guy
gets some form of
restitution and in other
states he has to sue for
it. In the majority of
either cases the chances
of his getting any real
money is fairly slim.
The states tend to
appeal any ruling
against them and by the
time the guy does
collect, more years will
have passed and his
attorney will probably
get more than he’ll ever
see. Looks to me like we
should have some sort of
uniformity to this
matter. I’m not saying
we should give each and
every guy a million
bucks, but let’s be
reasonable. If the
innocent guy was capable
of making say, $35,000 a
year and he got locked
up by mistake for twenty
years, then why
shouldn’t he be entitled
to a lump sum of
$700,000 for his pain
and suffering?
At the same time, why
have any appeal for the
state? This should be a
slam dunk. He is the
wrong guy, the state
owes the money, and he
gets the money within
six months of his
release, simple as that.
No attorneys needed, he
gets the money to help
him get on with his new
life. Why make the guys
suffer any more because
of damage done to him
for whatever reason.
Juries make mistakes,
the police make
mistakes, and the courts
make mistakes. We can’t
undo what has been done
to some guy who has sat
out the last fifteen or
twenty years in some
tiny cell with a
bunkmate named Bruno. We
are the state and if we
made a mistake, then the
least we can do is try
and correct what we did
as quickly as we can.
My second bone of
contention this week
concerns what happens to
drivers who run red
lights or stop signs and
kill someone. In our
state, the practice is
not to test the person
committing the traffic
violation to any drug or
alcohol test if they
don’t seem to be
impaired, even though
they might have ran a
light or stop sign and
killed anyone. It was
reported to me that we
do test (by autopsy) the
victims. This makes no
sense to me at all.
Apparently all anyone
can be charged with if
they run a light or stop
sign and kill someone is
a traffic violation; no
criminal charges can be
made against them.
Sure it was an accident,
but let’s get real, a
lot of people don’t show
any signs of drug or
alcohol abuse so why not
test any and all drivers
involved in a fatal
accident? And while
we’re at it, why not
have some type of
additional charge that
could be brought against
the driver who committed
the accident in the
first place? I realize
anyone could have an
accident, but killing
one or more people is
serious and there should
be consequences for our
actions. Just allowing
the person to get off
with a citation and pay
a fine seems to me an
awfully cheap price to
pay for someone’s
father, mother, brother,
sister, son or daughter.
It appears to me that
our various state
legislatures should be
looking into the
elimination of issues
such as these and stop
clowning around for the
media or passing inane
resolutions or laws
without any merit. But
then that’s just my
opinion.
