In America, justice is only available to those who can afford it. If you can't afford months or years of lawyer's fees and don't have the ability to take time away from your job, family and other daily obligations, you're simply out of luck.
It is not quite this dire, there are very competent public prosecutors and defenders. The problem is we accept the wealthy can obtain better and more lawyers, and effectively buy more or better justice as they define it. It's a classist system where justice is treated as a product rather than exclusively as a right.
Justice doesn't just come in form of public defenders. I lived in Chicago and had my car improperly towed to the yards. Being a rich computer dork, I could take the time off when the yards were open to go retrieve it. It was only PoC for the entire 3 hours it took me to pay the fine and get my vehicle back, during the day, when anyone with a job would be required to pick up their vehicle.
My job says OK when I tell them I am taking the afternoon off. Most people's don't. Most people's job says, "you're fired!".
One lady lost her car because they found a worn out pot pipe under the driver's seat, while her son was driving the car. For fucks sake. They wanted 1700 to get the car back out of impound. They didn't charge anyone with a crime. But the car was gone.
I on the other hand, had the time to go give my evidence the magistrate and get my 390$ returned due to a improper impound. No working class PoC could have done what I did, on either side of that equation.
The whole time I wanted to scream my lungs out about the fucking level of utter bullshit we inflict on ourselves. I love Chicagoans, but shit, Chicago cops and Chicago justice need to get tossed in the trash.
"You know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."
(tl;dr: the Athenians took Melos, killed the adult males, sold the remaining Melians as slaves, repopulated the island. Eventually they made the Venus de Milo. And so it goes.)
It is pretty dire when you have a system that incentivized throwing the book at those near the poverty line, so that private prisons could continue to grow.
cmurf|8 years ago
sitkack|8 years ago
My job says OK when I tell them I am taking the afternoon off. Most people's don't. Most people's job says, "you're fired!".
One lady lost her car because they found a worn out pot pipe under the driver's seat, while her son was driving the car. For fucks sake. They wanted 1700 to get the car back out of impound. They didn't charge anyone with a crime. But the car was gone.
I on the other hand, had the time to go give my evidence the magistrate and get my 390$ returned due to a improper impound. No working class PoC could have done what I did, on either side of that equation.
The whole time I wanted to scream my lungs out about the fucking level of utter bullshit we inflict on ourselves. I love Chicagoans, but shit, Chicago cops and Chicago justice need to get tossed in the trash.
B1FF_PSUVM|8 years ago
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/7142/7142-h/7142-h.htm#link2H... (Thucydides, book 5, Melian conference)
(tl;dr: the Athenians took Melos, killed the adult males, sold the remaining Melians as slaves, repopulated the island. Eventually they made the Venus de Milo. And so it goes.)
ShabbosGoy|8 years ago
It is crony capitalism, plain and simple.
unknown|8 years ago
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