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"Unfortunately higher courts frequently cannot be relied upon to reverse
lower court abuses.  In many cases appeals courts are either precluded
from reviewing new evidence or else political concerns stymie the
process."
Some effort needs to be made toward facilitating reversal of wrong
convictions.
FAILURE BY DESIGN
By Jacob Ferwerker
Since the early 60's most jurisdictions have changed the names of their
prisons to "correctional institutions" or "facilities."  Yet, with a
mid-year 1991 recidivism rate of 41%, they are defrauding the taxpayers.
The prison departments of the various states should be called
DEPARTMENTS OF REPRESSIONS AND CORRUPTIONS, as they repress and corrupt
those who are put in their charge.  Most likely, 70% of those first
placed in prison didn't belong there.  This accounts for why 59% don't
come back to prison.
The main problem is that we have a "justice system" that doesn't care if
it punishes the guilty along with the innocent, while we have
legislatures who view incarceration as a job issue and want to increase
the rate of incarceration.
Then we have high-ranking prison officials who desire a high recidivism
rate as a job-security issue.  They treat their charges in a
dehumanizing fashion guaranteed to cause anger and disdain of all
authority.  Prisoners are prevented from rehabilitating themselves,
with their own effort.  they're prevented from even getting modern
writing tools such as word-processors or/and computers.  I'm not talking
at taxpayer expense, I'm talking of those who have family and friends
willing to get these items for them.  These are not luxury items in
today's America.  Rather they are a job issure for released prisoners,
as over 90% of the living-wage paying available to released prisoners
require a high degree of proficiency in computers and word-processing.
Isn't it strange that the prisons that have the most restrictive
property policies generally have a higher recidivism rate than those who
have liberal policies?  Why do North Dakota and Minnesota have low
incarceration and low recidivism rates?  The rest of the nation should
follow the policies, laws, judiciary and prison/prisoner management of
these states, since they're doing something right!
GOOD READING
Your Editor has just finished reading a book by Andrew Tully entitled,
"Supreme Court."  It describes the turmoil of Justice Francis Copley
Dalton, youngest member of the Supreme Court, as he tries to support his
friend the President.  Dalton is continually torn as to whether the
rights of an individual should take precedence over the good of society.
he finally reaches his answer and goes to the President to say he can no
longer support him in changing the court.
He says:  "I'm afraid we -- all of us -- have been trying to tamper with
something of vital importance to oour freedoms.  We have been trying to
achieve conformity in an area where conformity is a peril to the
country.  We have militated against the left, against the Communist
menace which threatens our liberties.  But the fact is that if we can
curb the liberties of the left today, then at some later day we can do
the same thing to the extreme right, or to the center, or to any other
segment of opinion which at the moment happens to be unpopular."
"And this is where our basic disagreement has come.  Of course you must
act for the majority.  Every president must.  But don't you see -- just
as your function is to promote the welfare of the people as a whole, the
function of the courts is to guard the welfare of the individual, of the
minorities.  Our function is to decide that any interference with the
basic rights of the citizenry, as set forth by the Bill of Rights, is
wrong."
"It is our duty to keep the Bill of Rights abrest of the times, to use
the Bill of Rights to thwart every modern, streamlined effort that comes
along with the intent of abridging man's rights.  It's been a long time
since Thomas Jefferson and Madison, and over those years man has come up
with some clever ruses to deprive his fellows of their liberties.  This
man is refused his rights because he is a Communist, this man because he
is a Nazi, this man because he is always calling strikes.  The courts
must use the Bill of Rights to confound the oppressors, by whatever
political names they call themselves, no matter what the temporary
damage to the republic."
"There has been much talk, especially here in the White House, that the
Supreme Court is forever sticking its nose into matters that do not
concern it.  I now disagree.  I believe it is time the Court acted to
expand the area in which it exerts judicial influence.  In the past,
the court has been too unwilling to intervene in so-called 'political
questions.'  Well, political questions, so-called, involve people, and
where people are involved the Court also should involve itself.  I go
even further.  It is now my conviction that the Court should watch over
people who are likely to get into trouble for political reasons, and
should stand between them and that impending trouble.  A citizen should
be protected from getting into trouble; by the time he is in trouble it
often is too late to help him."
JOURNEY OF HOPE
The Journey of Hope, sponsored by Murder Victims Families for
Reconciliation (MVFR) will be in California September 22 to October 8.
This is a two-week education tour of ten major cities in California.
MVFR members, accompanied by firends and abolitionists from across the
country, will travel from San Diego to Sacramento telling their stories
and why they oppose the death penalty.  It is a diverse and
all-inclusive group which believes that healing happens not by vengeance
but by reconciliation -- with society, the community, the act of murder
itself and sometimes even the offender.  Anyone interested in more
information may contact Pat Bane, MVFR< P.O. Box 208. Atlantic, VA
23303-0208, 804-824-0948
THE 104th CONGRESS AND MATTHEW 25
Writing in christian Social Action, Andrea Young updates the judgment of
the nations in Matthew 25:31-40.
I was hungry and you eliminated the food stamp program; I was thirsty
and you weakened the regulations protecting clean water; I was a
stranger and you denied my children education and treated me like a
criminal; I was naked and you told me to get a job: I was sick and you
turned me away from the hospital; I was in prison and you told me I
could never earn parole."
(*We found this in the sunday Bulletin of August 6, 1995, at the
Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Juneau,
Alaska.*)
REHABILITATION?
In his book, "The Jury Returns," published in 1968, author and famous
defense attorney Louis Nezer responds to the statement by the
prosecution that rehabilitation is not a basis for clemency:
"This was a correct statement of the law, but it infuriated me.  It
reduced punishment to mere vengeance, or warning for the future.  It
ignored, no, worse than that, it rejected what seemed to me to be the
only conscionable ground for ever inflicting pain -- the hope of reform
and redemption.  Had we not in the twentieth century emerged from the
darkness of death by retaliation?  Was there no higher purpose for the
burtalizing exaction of ending life, than that we had sated ourselves
with revenge?  Where rehabilitation has occurred, the total objective
of punishment, it seemed to me, had been achieved.  yet the law said
rehabilitation was not a basis for clemency.  It was a law which had to
be reformed and I was burning to make the attempt.  ---- As I dozed off,
I thought of the words of Nathaniel Hawthorne: 'The best of us being
unfit to die, what an inexpressible absurdity it is to put the worst to
death.'"
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