Crime and Punishment
Crime and Punishment
(Tatoodi)
Capital punishment appears, to many people, to be the panacea for crime. This is based on an assumption that a perpetrator commits the crime because the expected punishment is not strict enough to prevent him or her from committing it. It also implies that stricter punishments would force the would-be criminals to desist from committing the crime. The reality does not match with this type of wishful thinking.
Crimes can basically be divided into two categories, those committed on the spur of the moment and the premeditated ones. The first type ‘happen’ due to the mitigating circumstances like provocation etc. when the persons committing them simply do not have the time to consider the consequences of their actions. The deliberate crimes, on the other hand, are committed with the full knowledge and understanding of their results. The criminals make all possible attempts not to get caught. Some of them do get caught but not always convicted because their smart lawyers are able to hide or twist the truth.
Prevention of crime cannot therefore be ensured unless the loopholes in the judicial system are plugged. Without this, simple passing of laws stipulating stricter punishment is bound to fail.
A major loophole obstructing the conviction of the guilty and thereby the effective deliverance of justice is the incorrect interpretation of the Fifth Amendment which reads as follows.
‘No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be put in jeopardy of life or limb, nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor to be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.’ (Emphasis provided by this writer.)
The simple and correct interpretation of the above amendment is that ‘No person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself without due process of law.’ This means that a person certainly CAN be made to testify against himself with due process of law. Once a person has been indicted by a Grand Jury and brought to a trial in a court of law, sworn under oath and put on the stand, there is no reason why he can be allowed not to answer any questions under the pretext of the Fifth Amendment. Currently, defendants are allowed not to testify by invoking their Fifth Amendment right. Essentially, they admit their guilt but challenge the prosecution to prove it. This should simply be unacceptable and corrected.
Another right that is being wrongfully used is the one to bear arms. The Second Amendment reads as follows:
‘A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.’
It is quite obvious that the right is not an unlimited one. The arms are to be kept and borne only as a part of a well-regulated militia and only for the purpose of ensuring the security of a free state. Any other use of the arms can certainly be infringed. Non‑regulation of arms has resulted in a massive proliferation of guns, which only works to the advantage of criminals. Therefore it is essential for crime prevention to close this loophole by prohibiting the use of all arms except as a part of a well-regulated militia for the security of a free state.
The founding fathers worded this amendment very carefully. They had to balance the need of the settlers who had to fight the natives against the need to prevent lawlessness within the settlers.
The third major loophole is the law of evidence, which prevents evidence obtained through the so-called ‘illegal’ searches being presented during a trial. Many criminals are acquitted simply because the evidence against them was considered to be inadmissible as having been gathered ‘illegally’. Justice cannot be served if the truth is prevented from being known. As long as the evidence is not a fabricated one, it should be allowed to be admitted to the trial regardless of the mode of its procurement. The only thing that should matter is the truth and not the rights of the defendants or the victims.
One more obstruction in delivering justice is the jury system. Twelve poets cannot design a bridge. Twelve engineers cannot perform a surgery. Nor can twelve persons not trained in law deliver justice. Only judges can deliver justice. The requirement that the jury must be unanimous in its decision is also improper. If the U.S. Supreme Court can rule on constitutional matters by a simple majority of five against four, there is no reason why less important cases must be resolved by unanimous juries only. Even the process of selecting the jury members is defective since it allows the attorneys of the two sides to reject a potential juror. The least that can be done to insure proper deliverance of justice is to let the jury be selected at random without any interference by attorneys of either side.
Some times a witness is asked to answer a question as ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’ There can be situations in which the whole truth that the witness is sworn to tell simply cannot be answered in one word. If the witness believes that he or she needs to explain the answer to a question at greater length, he or she should not be forced to restrict the answer to one word.
The guidelines for sentencing convicted persons seem to set an upper limit for fines and / or imprisonment. There should also be a lower limit for these. Temporary insanity should be a reason not for acquittal but for reduced sentence,
Justice is ill served by the notion that a lawyer's duty is to defend the client by any means including the suppression or distortion of the truth. It is therefore imperative that the notion be abandoned in favor of one that requires the lawyers and all others to uncover the truth even if the consequences are not favorable to the person doing so.