I'll lay it straight for you. One of my absolute, deepest fears, is of being charged and/or convicted of a crime I did not commit. I fear that despite knowing my innocence, I won't be able to convince a prosecutor or a jury of that fact. I fear that I'll be villified by everyone I ever loved. I fear I'll spend my entire life behind bars based off a mistake. It terrifies me.
It's articles like this that explain why. If for no other reason than to prevent horrors like this from happening, we must be ever-vigilent in making sure that our criminal justice system does everything possible to prevent an innocent man from being convicted. That commitment may not be politically popular, but it represents the baseline of how a just society conducts itself.
H/T: Ann Bartow
David,
ReplyDeleteYou ommitted the word "irrational" in your list of adjectives describing that fear. Run the numbers.
On the other hand, for a short time I shared that idea decades ago, but my fear was related to the idea that in crime drama the defendant is often askes "so where where were you (or what where you doing) on ..." some random day 9 months ago ... and of course I'd have no clue and subesequently no defense.