Should criminals be treated fairly?
These are the people who have violated someone’s rights. Criminals who have taken people’s lives and even the lives of innocent bystanders. Criminals who treated their spouses and families like rubbish and with violence. Criminals who are now being prosecuted, yet who are still on the streets spreading fear. Or they could be someone sitting beside you now. Once again, do they have the rights to be treated fairly?
Victims’ rights, morality and justice are not the only issues a judicial system should support. Above all, a judicial system should have fairness for everybody. We all have the right to pursue justice for what we have had suffered and we must have it fairly. Nonetheless, the ones who put us in that position should suffer also or even be punished for what they did. Am I right? However, as we pursue what we want, we tend to forget that the ones who did the crime still have their own human rights, even though they violated the rights of others. We would think, “Why would they still have their rights if they had offended someone else’s right? It is unfair, some of you would say. Now, I am asking to you, did you ever think or did it even come to your mind that once a person violated the law, you usually or sometimes conclude that his/her rights, as an individual living in a civilised society, should be abolished?
I believe criminals still have the right to defend themselves and have any legal representations they need. Many defence lawyers are often being misunderstood, even suspected of placing loyalty to clients above loyalty to society, and are associated with the misdeeds of their clients in the public mind. The very fact that a defence attorney represents a guilty client leads some people to conclude that the lawyer also must be untrustworthy like his/her client. Consider what these defence attorneys’ who represent scum, killing criminals, are really seeking for his client? They want fairness for all, even to these criminals. You might say right now that I am only bluffing about these interpretations. Well, here’s my evidence.
I had a family friend who was once practising defence law in Oklahoma City who is now spending his life in a wheelchair back in the Philippines. He had represented a man who was accused of beating his wife, which he really was. However, the Oklahoma Police Department failed to read him his rights and tortured him into confession while he was under custodial interrogation. He was tortured into confession! Nevertheless, the confession could not be used as evidence, and the judge had to dismiss the case. What is the connection of this case into what I am saying? My family friend had been treated badly, almost killed by half of the people in Oklahoma Police Department because they thought that it was his own fault that the man who was guilty in doing the crime was free and not serving time in jail. Three Policemen tried to harassed him in and out of his house, let his car brake loose and led him to have the accident that made him crippled. The criminal had been treated fairly and his own rights had been re-established because of his lawyer, yet the lawyer was treated badly. What a complete noble men these people are. Pursuing justice at all cost even though they have to set aside the suspect’s rights, they are just criminals after all. Are they being fair?
Another example of unfairness in a judicial system concerning criminals is how hard they are being punished. I reckon every one of you would think it depends on what crime he/she had done. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, punishment fits the crime. Although that punishment should be from absolute product of careful investigation and above all, a fair trial. Think about Saddam Hussein’s execution, he was found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death by hanging which was subsequently affirmed by Iraq's Supreme Court of Appeals. Which I think is what he really deserved, isn’t?
Well, I have one story to tell again. In 1987, an Austin, Texas jury found a man named Jimmy Lee Page not guilty of murder, but 20 years later, he remains a prisoner. Disregarding the jury’s verdict, the Texas Parole Board revoked Page’s parole. Page’s case is, apparently, a common practice in Texas. Two years ago, 91 parolees were returned to prison after being charged with a crime, even though the charges against them were later dropped or they were acquitted in court. Page had pled guilty to a 1975 murder and served 11 years of a life sentence regardless of the Jury’s findings. Not only Page did not receive the clearance from the crime he didn’t commit, but also he had served more than a decade of his life for it. Could that be fair enough?
May you be on the victim’s side or criminal’s side or you could be the one who is affected by the law violation itself, we all deserve to be treated equally. We deserve to be treated fairly. We deserve to be treated equally. Not because a person did a crime, it doesn’t mean that he/she deserves to be treated differently. They might have done the most horrible thing a man could ever imagined, criminals are still human who still have the rights to be executed. Although some of you would think that doing horrible thins such as killing people eliminates them as human and be some kind of devil. The only thing I would say to counter that is, I guess, as a human, a person has to have someone who feels compassion and concern for them above anything else and above any horrible things; they did or had been doing. If they don’t have anyone at all and if we add those people whose being unfair and judgmental against them, is that could be an enough reason to pursue justice and fairness, being a man living in a civilised society ? Once again, criminals do deserve fairness.
These are the people who have violated someone’s rights. Criminals who have taken people’s lives and even the lives of innocent bystanders. Criminals who treated their spouses and families like rubbish and with violence. Criminals who are now being prosecuted, yet who are still on the streets spreading fear. Or they could be someone sitting beside you now. Once again, do they have the rights to be treated fairly?
Victims’ rights, morality and justice are not the only issues a judicial system should support. Above all, a judicial system should have fairness for everybody. We all have the right to pursue justice for what we have had suffered and we must have it fairly. Nonetheless, the ones who put us in that position should suffer also or even be punished for what they did. Am I right? However, as we pursue what we want, we tend to forget that the ones who did the crime still have their own human rights, even though they violated the rights of others. We would think, “Why would they still have their rights if they had offended someone else’s right? It is unfair, some of you would say. Now, I am asking to you, did you ever think or did it even come to your mind that once a person violated the law, you usually or sometimes conclude that his/her rights, as an individual living in a civilised society, should be abolished?
I believe criminals still have the right to defend themselves and have any legal representations they need. Many defence lawyers are often being misunderstood, even suspected of placing loyalty to clients above loyalty to society, and are associated with the misdeeds of their clients in the public mind. The very fact that a defence attorney represents a guilty client leads some people to conclude that the lawyer also must be untrustworthy like his/her client. Consider what these defence attorneys’ who represent scum, killing criminals, are really seeking for his client? They want fairness for all, even to these criminals. You might say right now that I am only bluffing about these interpretations. Well, here’s my evidence.
I had a family friend who was once practising defence law in Oklahoma City who is now spending his life in a wheelchair back in the Philippines. He had represented a man who was accused of beating his wife, which he really was. However, the Oklahoma Police Department failed to read him his rights and tortured him into confession while he was under custodial interrogation. He was tortured into confession! Nevertheless, the confession could not be used as evidence, and the judge had to dismiss the case. What is the connection of this case into what I am saying? My family friend had been treated badly, almost killed by half of the people in Oklahoma Police Department because they thought that it was his own fault that the man who was guilty in doing the crime was free and not serving time in jail. Three Policemen tried to harassed him in and out of his house, let his car brake loose and led him to have the accident that made him crippled. The criminal had been treated fairly and his own rights had been re-established because of his lawyer, yet the lawyer was treated badly. What a complete noble men these people are. Pursuing justice at all cost even though they have to set aside the suspect’s rights, they are just criminals after all. Are they being fair?
Another example of unfairness in a judicial system concerning criminals is how hard they are being punished. I reckon every one of you would think it depends on what crime he/she had done. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, punishment fits the crime. Although that punishment should be from absolute product of careful investigation and above all, a fair trial. Think about Saddam Hussein’s execution, he was found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death by hanging which was subsequently affirmed by Iraq's Supreme Court of Appeals. Which I think is what he really deserved, isn’t?
Well, I have one story to tell again. In 1987, an Austin, Texas jury found a man named Jimmy Lee Page not guilty of murder, but 20 years later, he remains a prisoner. Disregarding the jury’s verdict, the Texas Parole Board revoked Page’s parole. Page’s case is, apparently, a common practice in Texas. Two years ago, 91 parolees were returned to prison after being charged with a crime, even though the charges against them were later dropped or they were acquitted in court. Page had pled guilty to a 1975 murder and served 11 years of a life sentence regardless of the Jury’s findings. Not only Page did not receive the clearance from the crime he didn’t commit, but also he had served more than a decade of his life for it. Could that be fair enough?
May you be on the victim’s side or criminal’s side or you could be the one who is affected by the law violation itself, we all deserve to be treated equally. We deserve to be treated fairly. We deserve to be treated equally. Not because a person did a crime, it doesn’t mean that he/she deserves to be treated differently. They might have done the most horrible thing a man could ever imagined, criminals are still human who still have the rights to be executed. Although some of you would think that doing horrible thins such as killing people eliminates them as human and be some kind of devil. The only thing I would say to counter that is, I guess, as a human, a person has to have someone who feels compassion and concern for them above anything else and above any horrible things; they did or had been doing. If they don’t have anyone at all and if we add those people whose being unfair and judgmental against them, is that could be an enough reason to pursue justice and fairness, being a man living in a civilised society ? Once again, criminals do deserve fairness.
****partly true, partly made up. You just decide what.***
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