Justice

In one of my favorite scenes from “A Man for All Seasons,” by Robert Bolt, Thomas More’s relatives try to convince him to have Richard Rich arrested.

“Alice More: Arrest him!

Thomas More: Why, what has he done?

Margaret More: He’s bad!

Thomas More: There is no law against that.

Will Roper: There is! God’s law!

More: Then God can arrest him.

Alice: While you talk, he’s gone!

More: And go he should, if he was the Devil himself, until he broke the law!

Roper: So now you’d give the Devil benefit of law!

More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

Roper: I’d cut down every law in England to do that!

More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast – man’s laws, not God’s – and if you cut them down – and you’re just the man to do it – do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.”

I’ve heard people say things like, “What do you mean, alleged? He must be guilty. If not, why was he charged? Why did they arrest him? They should lock him up and throw away the key. He’s a bad man, a horrible person.” In many ways, life would be easier if we could just get rid of all the bad people.

On the other hand, we have this annoying legal principle: “a person is innocent until proven guilty.” Most of us believe it is better to let a guilty person walk free from time-to-time than to punish a person who is innocent. In court, we set the bar of proof high for this reason.

It would be easier to set the bar low, to assert that a person is “guilty until proven innocent.” That way, fewer criminals might walk among us, and everyone else might be safer. But is this true? The US already has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world and we regularly learn of innocent people being exonerated years after being wrongly convicted. And we still have crime.

As one president put it, there are a lot of “bad hombres” out there. Maybe we need to do whatever it takes to get them off the streets. But then, we would run the risk of convicting people we simply don’t like – because they have poor judgement, questionable intelligence, racist or sexist beliefs, are part of the wrong religion or political party, or were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. We would also run the risk of denying innocent people a competent defense, unless they have the resources to afford it.

Lady Justice wears a blindfold for a reason. We are not to consider what the defendant looks like or anything else not relevant to the case at hand. Horrible people can be innocent of a crime, or at least found not guilty of the crime with which they have been charged. Likewise, a woman who happened to dress “provocatively” is not the cause of her assault. Members of a jury are supposed to consider the law, not their feelings about the defendant or the alleged victim.

It’s not easy to make sure everyone has rights. It’s even more difficult to watch a defendant many people believe is guilty walk free while others must suffer. Sometimes justice seems out-of-reach. Sometimes there are no heroes, much less saints. Sometimes bad people seem to get away with being criminally bad. Sometimes the best we can say is that the case was “not proven.”

Even so, if I were accused of a crime, I know I would want to be considered innocent until proven guilty. I know I would want to have the best defense attorney possible. I know I would want the judge to make sure my rights were upheld. I also want these things for others, even for people I find repugnant.

Fortunately, there is no law against being “a bad man” or even being a fool. If we ignore the law, or bypass it to serve our desires, we do so at our own risk. What if one day we find ourselves under suspicion or accused of a crime? What then? Will we be happy we weakened the law to stop that “bad” man, or placed another man above the law? Ironically, in the end Thomas More was accused of a crime he did not commit, and the King “cut down” the law to get rid of him. Richard Rich committed perjury, and More was beheaded. The law will do us no good if we fail to use it to protect everyone, even people we don’t like.