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Balancing the Scales of Justice PDF Print E-mail
Real Wide World - Real Wide World
Written by Maggie Moore   
Wednesday, July 20 2011 22:44
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"We all took it very seriously. We knew we were dealing with someone's life." In a few short sentences my close friend, Kate, summed up her recent experience serving on a jury. "We really did have the power, and we had to do the right thing."

I've always tried to eschew the stereotype of the apathetic college student, especially as a contributor to the Real Wide World section of UDress. As a hopeful idealist, I would love to believe Kate when she says the American judicial system is a clean and simple structure that works perfectly. But as a more informed citizen...I just cannot.

In the past week especially, I have been torn in two different directions in my thoughts on our country's legal setup. Last weekend, I attended a screening of "Crime After Crime," a documentary detailing the frustrating journey two lawyers took to free Debbie Peagler, a woman jailed for four times longer than should have been her sentence. In 1983, Debbie was charged with having a small part in the death of her horribly abusive boyfriend, who beat her violently and forced her into prostitution. Debbie was serving a life sentence when pro bono lawyers agreed to take her case and discovered prosecutorial misconduct, witness perjury, and the reality that she should only have been sentenced to six years at the maximum.

Image: www.crimeaftercrime.com

Debbie is an intelligent, kind-hearted woman who was in a terrible situation when she was younger, and her punishment was much harsher than she deserved. Sitting through this hour and a half documentary - and having the privilege to speak with both the director of the movie and Debbie's lawyer afterwards - made me wonder why a woman such as Debbie, who had a real chance to change society for the better, was wrongly forced to spend her life behind concrete walls and metal bars, and why so many layers of legal red tape kept her there.

Conversely, I was equally shocked and dismayed about the court proceedings and outcome of the trial of Casey Anthony. It seems the whole country was in shock when she was declared "not guilty" on the charges of killing her young daughter. While I understand that the jury was doing their impartial best to sift out the hard evidence from the heated emotions of the courtroom, it doesn't make their decision any easier to accept. Maybe the part that pains us the most is seeing the pictures of adorable two-year-old Caylee, and realizing no accountability is being taken for her tragic death. Instead of getting to the core of the matter, lawyers on both sides turned the trial into a circus fit for the center ring of Barnum & Bailey's. Accusations of affairs, drugs, incest, and even questionable tattoos, distracted from the real case and did a disservice in the trial - but it sure pleased the scandal obsessed media.

It seems contradictory that I feel so strongly that one woman should be granted freedom while the other punished to a lifetime in prison, but our judicial system is its own set of contradictions. Judges and lawyers can continue to extol the ethics of our legal structure, but when I read the news stories and see nothing but sensationalized media frenzies or crooked District Attorneys and conveniently "forgotten" evidence, I have to disagree and say America's court system is deeply flawed. Juries may try their best to be fair and impartial but it seems no matter what their rulings, our country can never win the real battle.

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