I've been thinking a lot about our "justice system" as the media have covered the cases of Casey (and Caylee), Amanda (and Meredith), the Memphis Three and Troy (and the police officer he said he didn't kill). It seems to me that we have come a long way from being able to trust that our justice system is actually discovering truth and dealing out just consequences for proven actions. The media coverage of these cases (including social media) seems to have taken on a role in influencing the outcomes of trials, and certainly the lives of those accused whether acquitted or convicted. And certainly money and access to media seem to have become important in the eyes of the lawyers, judges, and jurors. Family members and friends and people who had opinions spent enormous amounts of money, time and energy to free those they said were innocent; law enforcement and the justice system spent enormous amounts of money trying to prove they were guilty, all in the name of justice.
I am puzzled by Meredith's family continuing to insist that Amanda and Rafaele murdered Meredith, saying that they still believe that Meredith was killed by these two (and not Rudy Guede who is in prison for having killed her). I am puzzled by Mark MacPhail's widow continuing to insist that Troy Davis killed her husband, even though so many of the "eyewitnesses" have recanted their testimony. I am puzzled by the death threats against Casey Anthony after her acquittal. I am puzzled by so many of us having opinions about the innocence or guilt based on our intuitions about these cases. I know that I was participating by following these cases. And I know that I often have opinions about situations based on my perceptions and intuition. So I'm not claiming to be outside the problem here.
Obviously I cannot know whether any of these were indeed innocent of the crimes for which they were tried (and in Troy's case, for which he was executed). I prayed that Amanda (and Rafaele) would be released if they are innocent. And I hope they are....but I find myself hesitant to say I know they are innocent. Yet I would rather they be released if they were guilty than imprisoned if they were innocent. And I believe that God knows the truth, perhaps even more deeply than they do.
Our human justice system appears more and more to be distorted by money and competing interests and media influence. "Lady Justice" no longer seems to be blind. I do know people who have been acquitted justly, but I also know people who have been convicted and punished unjustly. But overall I find myself (and I'm not alone), not trusting the justice system, not trusting politicians (most of whom are lawyers....), not trusting government or the political process.
Our concept of justice has evolved from earliest understandings that truth must be discovered and actions must have appropriate consequences, for the sake of the whole community. We say that God is just and fair (but also merciful, thank You), and that is very important to our understanding of who God is and why we can/should trust God. My trust in God is sometimes challenged in the light of evil I see done and inherent in our power structures. We no longer (in most countries) require "an eye for an eye." But when we see boundaries violated in ways that come under the jurisdiction of the law, we hope for truth and just punishment.
Yet does our justice system function to provide that? Some of the time, yet, but we hear so many stories of prisoners who learn new ways of violence from other prisoners, and of abuses and suffering. We hear about tremendous profits from human trafficking, fraud, outrageous bonuses, drugs, slave labor and poor working conditions, and about other wrongs like bullying that is not stopped, domestic violence, disproportional incarceration of African-American men, and many other wrongs, I am sometimes tempted to despair when I see so much injustice, and so much apparent distortion of values and power and uses of money. I also have to look at ways that I benefit from or participate in abusive systems of power and systemic damage to the environment, the economy and to justice. But I always come back to remembering that I believe God to be both just and merciful, more powerful than human systems, able "by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than we can ask or imagine," (Ephesians 3:20) and I am renewed in my commitment to "do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8).
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