Louis Taylor

I watched the CBS evening news last night and was touched by the Louis Taylor story, and angered by the use of coercion to avoid paying damages to someone who lost over forty years of his life to an overzealous system.

If true, the video tells the whole story. The system needed to find someone guilty of the 1970 fire that killed 28 people in Tucson, Arizona. Mr. Taylor was in the wrong place at the wrong time… and was black. This is a disgusting use of racism. If he would have had an competent and interested attorney he probably would have been found not-guilty. But attorneys are expensive, and the system can tell if a case is a slam dunk. In his instance, it was.

I think that it’s time for a national debate about our so called justice system, one that’s turned into an industry that feeds the prisons. In this instance, if what I’ve read and heard is true, I think that the Pima County, Arizona judicial system owes Mr. Taylor a lot of money.

Most cases are plea-bargained as the defendants are told to plea or be financially destroyed. Many defendants can’t afford to defend themselves. Almost all plead guilty to one or two charges, reduced from dozens and become felons. The “bad guy” goes to prison and the prosecutor gets a raise, and enhances his career prospects.

The game is to throw as many charges against the defendants as possible; plea them down to one or two or go to trial. Even if the jury finds that 19 out of 20 charges are ridiculous, any conviction will result in a long sentence and a financial trauma. I suspect many are innocent. It’s the system, and the prisons need prisoners or the prison building boom would end and prison guards laid off. Bad for business. If you don’t believe it, here is a graph that will make you a believer.

I suggest that our national debate can focus on the cost of defending against an accusation. On one hand you have the government, local or federal that has unlimited funds and personnel, and on the defendants side you probably have almost no resources.

I think that if a case goes to trial and the defendant is found not-guilty, then the prosecuting agency must pay the defendant’s legal fees.

If this change is made, several things will change. Many more cases will go to trial and fewer plea bargains will be struck. If weak cases go to trial and the defendant is found not-guilty, then they will be made whole, their families will remain intact and they won’t go to prison. The prison population will start to drop, reducing taxpayers costs of running the prisons and creating felons who have serous issues integrating into society when released. Released prisoners are labeled felons forever and have minimal job prospects.

Once again, only after the defendant is found not-guilty. The prosecution will try to use a loophole by overcharging a defendant and citing a “spitting on the sidewalk” or similar minor charge, that once proven, becomes “proof of guilt” to avoid compensation but that can be dealt with by careful legislation.

If the prosecuting authorities don’t pay the legal fees of an innocent (or at least not-guilty) party, then the federal government can pay the fees directly and deduct them from the federal funds sent to that municipality. Dodging them will not be an option.

We hear a lot about people being “brought to justice.” Does that mean you’re guilty until proven innocent, or innocent until proven guilty? I prefer the later as enshrined by our  founding  fathers and codified by an 1894 Supreme Court ruling. Plea-bargains remove the need for proof.

I am not soft on crime or criminals, but I do see a trend to put too many people in prison. The United States has the highest per capita incarceration rate, especially if you’re black. I have to ask why? Is it because of more crimes, better policing or plea-bargain coercion. I think the later.

In Mr. Taylor’s instance instead of a new trial and being released on bond, they forced him to plead “no contest.” Why? So he could get an immediate release rather than sit in prison, possibly for years, awaiting a second trial as Pima County would have used every trick in the book to delay it.

He may be free, but unemployable and without job skills, still labeled a felon and not even able to drive a car. Pima County is still bent on destroying him, except that his prison is outside of the walls and not inside.

I’m disgusted.

Editor’s note, October 13, 2015

60 Minutes did another story about injustice in our justice system. Watch this. It’s very sad.