Once a person is arrested for an alleged crime are then indicted, they are supposed to then receive a bail and have a trial date where the prosecution needs to prove that the alleged defendant is guilty. In order to be found guilty a jury of twelve people need to vote whether or not they are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt based on what they heard during the trial. If a defendant is presumed innocent and it is up to the prosecutor to prove their guilt then how is it possible that a number of juries have found innocent people guilty. These guilty findings have the possibility to send the defendant away for long periods of time, sometimes the rest of their life. No system is perfect and is going to have their flaws but after seeing and reading about many cases where innocent people are found guilty you can see a number of faults in our legal system.
The first problem starts with the process of the defendant receiving bail. If you are presumed innocent then you shouldn’t to sit in a jail cell waiting for the prosecutor to prove your guilt. However, the only way a defendant is able to get out is if they can afford it. At times bails are set so high that it is impossible for a person to post that bail. Some cases people just don’t have the money to post bail no matter what it is and are stuck in jail until their trial date comes. How is a defendant supposed to fight to prove their innocence when they are stuck in a jail cell and have no means to try and hire a lawyer to help fight his case.
The issue of bail is a topic that has been brought up a lot in recent news. If you are considered innocent then you shouldn’t have to pay a bail to get out of jail before your trial. Our bail system proves that we have a system where we defendants are considered guilty until they prove themselves innocent, otherwise they wouldn’t have to sit in jail. Now I do understand that there are certain situations where they feel it is best for the defendant to remain in jail until there trial date, but this should not be for everyone. The fact that a defendant is sitting in jail already gives a jury a first impression of guilt.
If you are unable to make bond and cannot afford a lawyer the state will appoint one to you. The problem I have with this is that most of the time they are known for being the best lawyer and do not receive a lot of money to represent your case. The other problem is I believe that most of the time these lawyers take on the case assuming their client is already guilty. If you have a lawyer who thinks you are guilty then they are not going to do everything they can to make sure you are acquitted. The lawyer you get matters tremendously in cases as it has been proven with certain cases where everyone knew the defendant was guilty and they got found not guilty anyway, mainly because of the work the lawyer did.
Once a defendant is ready to go to trail the majority of the people in the court room already look at the defendant like they are guilty. The problem in our society is that we think if the cops arrested them then they must have arrested them for a reason and therefore they are guilty. Once the case has been brought to trial the way the case was handled is reviewed very little. There have been many cases where the detectives have had tunnel vision on a suspect and other evidence has gone unnoticed because of that. The fact that certain evidence is allowed to be brought in trial and others aren’t is something that has also bothered me. If someone is fighting for their life, then shouldn’t everything be relevant. How can a piece a evidence be kept out because it might influence the jury, isn’t that the whole point. When certain evidence is kept out of trial then it is impossible for the jury to determine guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
In a lot of cases I have seen the guilt of a defendant is presumed based on his character and not the evidence. I have seen a few cases where a person was found guilty with no evidence but because of the type of person he was. There was one case where a father went to work and forget his sleeping baby was in the back seat. It was a hot day and by the time the father remembered it was too late. Surprisingly, this is a sad situation that happens often. People can say that there is no way they would ever leave their child in a car and assume they must all be guilty but you will be surprised, especially if you taking the child is not part of your daily routine. This is how it was in the case I am talking about. The father never took his child to day care but he did on that day. Without even thinking about it he drove straight to work and didn’t notice his sleeping child in the back seat.
If a baby is sleeping and not making a sound it isn’t hard to get in your own little world and forget. Every person it has happened to has said the same thing before it happened to them, there is no way I could ever leave my child in a hot car. Most of the time it is ruled an accident but in this particular case, which occurred in 2014 by a man named Justin Ross Harris, he was convicted of murder and sentenced to life. However, looking at the evidence in this case it was clear that he was only convicted for one reason, they didn’t like him as a person. Harris was having intimate conversations with women through texting and even claimed he was having affairs. Because of this the prosecutor said he was unhappy in his marriage and wanted out, their motive for him killing his child.
Aside from the many issues I had with this man being convicted, his ex-wife, the mother of his child, even testified that she didn’t believe her ex killed their child and claimed there was no way he ever would. As far as the motive, if he was unhappy in his marriage then wouldn’t he kill his wife and not his child. Doesn’t make a lot of sense. There was no life insurance, other women that he was running off with, no reason for him to kill his child, other than the prosecutor’s theory, he was unhappy in his marriage. That is why they have divorce.
The problem in our system is that this isn’t an isolated incident. Many times an innocent man is sent to jail not based on the evidence or the the motive but simply because of the person he has. And the prosecutor will make sure to paint a very good picture portraying the defendant in the world light possible so that even the jury doesn’t like the defendant. If something doesn’t have anything to do with the case then why is it allowed in the trial. It seems like a lot of the time the judge seems to side with the prosecutor on allowing certain evidence that doesn’t have anything to do with the case and leaving evidence out that does.
These are just a few examples of what is wrong but every innocent person sitting in prison right now has gone through this. If the prosecutor had to prove the defendant was guilty then no innocent man should be incarcerated. Anyone who has ever seen a crime show knows that is not how our system works. As soon as someone is arrested it is on the news and in the papers and the public already has idea that the person is guilty. People tend to think that if the police arrest someone then they are guilty. That leaves the defendant having to prove his innocence and if he is unable to prove it, then he is guilty, beyond a reasonable doubt or not.