by Ethan Holmes

Created on: February 27, 2009

Guilty In the Street

It is a profoundly difficult thing to explain the experience of false accusation, arrest and imprisonment. I suppose it would be like trying to convey the impact of surviving a deadly illness such as cancer to a person who has been relatively healthy all their lives. The trauma of such things as iodine bone scans, radiation treatments and chemotherapy can never be fully appreciated by someone who has never had to deal with it and the same can be said about false arrest.

Cops are not public servants'. They are not here to serve you or me and few if any of them see themselves as public servants on public pay. They are here to do a job just like you and I. We have problems and issues in our jobs, so do they. The difference is that they have a gun, a taser, a badge and the full power of the law behind them to enforce the law as they see fit out on the streets.

This is supported by a district attorney who, in many cases, is an elected official. What that means to the layman is that whenever this man or woman's term is up their likelihood of retaining the position is inherently tied to their performance record; (In other words, their conviction rate in the great fight against crime.) So naturally in order to preserve their own job security they will try to obtain a conviction in every case that comes across their desk. Keep in mind this does not require a courtroom trial as a plea deal works just as well. Getting an accused person to plea out to something looks as good on paper as a full blown trial conviction.

Ironically included in this support system is the over-taxed, heavily burdened public defender. This person is usually a poorly paid somewhat disillusioned attorney who quickly realized that he/she was not participating in the American justice system. It didn't take long to find out it's a legal system which has very little to do with justice and runs on one resource alone, money! Put in the simplest terms, if you don't have any you are far more likely to be convicted of something, whether it is what you were charged with or what you and your public defender bargained.

As you can see, we now have all the perfect ingredients for an innocent person to get falsely accused of something, then get arrested and finally convicted. This conviction, depending on what it is, can result in jail time, house arrest, probation, and the permanent fouling of your name and reputation. All that is lacking is the proper events to set this whole thing in motion.

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