Yes,
Judge Judy is often harsh with the people in her courtroom. Usually it is
amusing, and there is a sense that they deserve it. You have people refusing to
give a straight answer, and it is still clear that they are not good people,
and have not been at all responsible or even minimally considerate of others. As
often as she has to deal with people like that, and reach some resolution with
them, well, I would get cranky too.
Sometimes
though there are points where I feel the contempt is not completely deserved.
Maybe they have made bad choices, but there are circumstances where they are
not that surprising. She really looks down on state assistance, but those
programs serve purposes. That's not saying that they are immune to abuse, or
that the people who are likely to abuse such programs might not be the type do
other things that would get them on the show, but I sense an unnecessary level
of prejudice on her part.
I
guess the short way of saying it is that she comes across as politically
conservative.
It
makes sense. We have covered this before, but if the system works for you, you
are more likely to be conservative. The system has been good to her. That
doesn't mean that there was no hard work or determination involved on her part.
I admire her, she had a good legal career before the show, and I think she was
a great find for the show. I do think, and this probably goes back to that
normal bias in one's own favor, that it is easy to think that the good things
that come to you are totally deserved, and that other people's problems and
shortcomings are totally deserved, when that may not be the case.
I
have been thinking about that more because of a few people whose criminal
charges came up in the case of dealing with the civil suits. Some have accepted
pleas, and that is taken as proof of guilt despite their protestations of
innocence.
I
know that some of them, and probably even most of them, did in fact do the
things that they pled to. Because of the things that you have to swear to
there, and she has referenced it, technically no one should accept a guilty
plea unless they actually did it. You have to confirm that you haven't been
coerced, and you understand what you are doing, and similar statements.
It
seems like a way of preventing any innocent person from ever losing their
chance to be cleared by a jury, so it should be a good thing. For an innocent
person who has no faith in the system, and no reason to have faith in the
system, it's pretty cruel. If you are scared and desperate, is that not
coercion? Sure, you can take your chances, but what are your chances?
I
am thinking about one of the examples in The New Jim Crow. She was taken
up in a neighborhood sting, she had no drugs, but she was going to be held
until trial if she pled innocent, and she had children to get home too. She
pled guilty, and then for most of the people who were being held the charges
were dropped, but it was too late for her.
I
am thinking of Marissa Alexander agreeing to a plea deal. Yes, she could have
made a good case for defense, and some people were disappointed in her for
accepting the plea, but she was looking at sixty years, and she didn't even
injure anyone!
I
am thinking about Candice Anderson who pled guilty to criminally negligent
homicide because she lost control of the car and her boyfriend died. She didn't
think she had been negligent, but what other explanation could there be? Only a
faulty ignition switch, which GM knew about, because they had reviewed her case
five months before she entered the guilty plea, but they didn't tell anyone
until they had no choice, years later, after her parents liquidated their 401K
and she had paid fines and restitution.
And
of course I remember Josh Marquis that night in Powells. Actually, I'm just
going to quote myself:
"Marquis
never came right out and said that he still thought the guy was guilty, but
there were different points that he raised that would lead one to believe so.
For example, the way this man, Edward Lee Elmore, got out of prison was that
after the most recent conviction was overturned, he entered a plea that is not
accepting guilt but not denying it either, and Marquis' point was now that he
has a good lawyer, and he would certainly not be sentenced to anything worse
than time served, why not go for it and prove innocence? Well, from the point
of view of the legal team, the prosecution played dirty three times in a row,
and they did not want to risk it again, and maybe Elmore would just like to be
out after 28 years in jail."
Well if you were really innocent you'd risk it. Would you?
The
Innocence Project keeps clearing more people, and some of them have to wait a
long time.
Maybe
we can't expect the legal system to be perfect, but it feels like we have set
our expectations too low. A lot of the flaws have to do with economics, and a
lot of them have to do with race. We have to face those things if we want the
word "justice" to have any meaning at all.
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