From: matt@smoke.brl.mil (Matthew Rosenblatt)
Newsgroups: misc.legal
Subject: Re: Say it ain't so
Summary: Why we have a criminal justice system.
Keywords: "Take Back Our City"
Date: 29 Dec 92 16:31:17 GMT
Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Lab, APG MD.

Here's a little exchange that explains so much of what is wrong
with our criminal justice system:

In article <1992Dec28.234854.1666@bony1.bony.com> jake@bony1.bony.com 
(Jake Livni) writes:

>In article <1992Dec21.082019.28311@Princeton.EDU> 
>niepornt@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (David Marc Nieporent) writes:

>>Yes.  The Jews in New York aren't been treated by the authorities at
>>all.  You keep on seeing Lemrick Nelson's trial as a means for justice for
>>Yankel Rosenbaum.  It isn't.  It's a means for justice for Lemrick Nelson.
>>[David Marc Nieporent]

>OK, so there is no justice for Yankel Rosenbaum.  Why didn't you just
>tell us this at the start?  [Jake Livni]

The criminal justice system is a function of government.  The principal
justification of government, as expressed in the American Declaration
of Independence, is to "secure these rights"; i.e., the rights to "life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" with which we are endowed by our
Creator.

*It's too late* for government, either through the criminal justice
system or otherwise, to secure any rights of Yankel Rosenbaum's.  He
is dead.  Maybe he would still be alive if the New York City government
had viewed the protection of ordinary citizens' freedom to go about
their own harmless business -- like walking down city streets -- as
more important than avoiding whatever violence against the violent
it would have taken to quash the rioting as soon as it broke out.
Maybe not: the police cannot be everywhere, and we would not want
to live in a society where the police were everywhere.  Either way,
Yankel Rosenbaum's rights (may G-d avenge his blood!) are beyond 
protecting.

Nevertheless, there is more to the criminal justice system than
providing justice to the accused.  That's a *necessary* condition,
but it is far from sufficient.  Since the police cannot be everywhere,
and since there are always a few people whose own internal controls
are insufficient to deter them from committing violent crime, it
ought to be a primary purpose of the criminal justice system to
instill such *terror* in would-be criminals that they will be as
*afraid* to give in to their violent impulses, even when the police
are not watching, as they normally are when the police are watching.

Justice to the accused means abiding by the Constitution and the
rules of evidence and of fair play.  Sometimes this means that a man
we think is guilty will go free, but that is the price of justice.
On the other hand, once a man has been convicted by a jury of his
peers, justice does *not* require that we refrain from *any means
necessary* to (1) incapacitate him from committing further crimes,
and (2) terrify his would-be imitators.  

If a government lets its solicitude for the well-being of criminals 
keep it from securing the rights of ordinary citizens to life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness, such a government is failing at what the
Declaration of Independence gives as the reason that "governments are
instituted among men," and ought not be allowed to govern any longer.

Fortunately, the government of New York City is not that of King George III.
It can easily be altered without being abolished, without any bloodshed
or Revolution.  All that is needed is a "Take Our City Back" movement
of good people committed to bringing about the demise of ENVY and
RESENTMENT by demonstrating to the ENVIOUS and RESENTFUL that these
sentiments will no longer pay because city government will no longer
cater to them as it has been doing since the days of Mayor Robert F.
Wagner.  For forty years after the bloody Spanish Civil War, there
was peace and quiet in Spain because it was clear to all that ENVY
and RESENTMENT would not get one anywhere.  It's time to do the same
for New York City.

					-- Matt Rosenblatt
                                        (matt@amsaa.brl.mil)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Die Knechtschaft dauert nur noch kurze Zeit."
Newsgroups: misc.legal