I was getting ready for work the other day when I noticed that a show called
Death Penalty on Trial was on A&E. Given our experiences I was curious as to the subject, after all here they were putting people on trial for capital crimes, surely the professionals would be diligent in the execution of their duties in these cases. I thought wow, this is interesting, surly these "professionals" responsibility would be to ensure that the real "criminals" are caught, tried, punished or executed for their crimes. This is in their best interests to be diligent, society would not want a capital offender wandering their streets, the victims would not want an innocent to be punished for a crime that they did not do.
The statistics that I heard was that either one out of three or two out of three have been found innocent, exonerated through DNA. Either way the stats are bad, one in fifty maybe acceptable failure and then due diligence would apply to resolve the error. The show stated the following responsible for these failures:
- Negligent defense attorney.
- Over zealous prosecutors.
- Prejudiced judge.
- Law enforcement contamination.
I thought about it, here is a population responsible for catching and punishing the "bad guy", removing them from society, yet they punish the innocent. Rather than following the evidence, "rule of law" is actually rule by whimsy and convenience. Remember these are "professionals", that have credentials stating that they are trained and educated.
Where does this put one who did not commit a capital offense ? This show only addresses individuals that were convicted and sentenced to a "death penalty" punishment, what would be discovered from a more in depth study ?
I then consider our experiences, regardless of how we got into our situations, when an attorney was retained, whether in a probono capacity or paid, there was an expectation of professional competence. We knew that we could not buy Perry Mason, that was why we provided lists of contacts and relevant items that should have supported our cases. Instead what we got was betrayal, desertion and negligence from these professionals. When I bring up these experiences I get the "a few bad apples" excuse. Well, where are these "bad apples", I looked into the attorneys we retained and they were not on the "bad apple" lists.
What institution certifies the competence of the individuals that chose the legal profession ?
Here in Virginia it is the State Bar an institution that claims to be an agency of the Virginia Supreme Court. Surely they would want to ensure the
integrity of the profession, they had a policy before the 2000
replacement. After 2000 the Virginia State Bar does not address strategy complaints. The 2000 change in policy removed any leverage a client had over their attorney, after legal wars I know we could not afford to buy our justice.
Why would the Virginia State Bar an Agency of the Supreme Court of Virginia remove a policy that provided an avenue for a client to address attorney malfeasance ?
Avoidance ? It was not a duty to society, because then there would be an initiative to ensure competent counsel, not a lame statement that one can go further into debt buying another member of the institution of questionable competence.
What this policy change does give them is the ability to claim that their members are diligent, with no supporting metrics or statistics kept to refute the claim, this claim is supposed to be accepted because they are an authority. Attempts are made on people like me to intimidate us from stating the message, that we are stupid, in need of mental health professional.....
How many other State Bar's implemented a policy change that would allow them to avoid addressing the integrity or diligence of its population, expecting the victim to pay for the failures of their members ?
Precedence has been set when a lack of diligence is exposed on capital cases, not of just one case or one State but many. This show represents statistics that refutes the claims of a "few bad apples" from the population executing the judicial process in addressing cases that could result in the termination of an individual. Ironically in my favorite example, the Virginia State Bar, local and State Government, their lack of diligence means that they cannot refute any claim made of malfeasance, it is not a metric that they collect. The metric is avoided which in itself is suspicious of alleged "law abiding" organizations and then claiming innocence. As they say, the criminal always claims innocence - enjoy the show
A & E Classroom series Death Penalty on Trial.
A&E Investigative Reports: Death Penalty on Trial DVD
Death Penalty Information Center
Costs of the Death Penalty
Court TV News - Death Penalty on Trial
