Gettin' all serious 'n stuff

(Editorial submitted to the Duluth News-Tribune)

“Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them to become what they are capable of being.” – Johann Wolfgang van Goethe


As a summer law clerk with the Duluth Public Defender’s Office, I have been asked countless times how I can, in good conscience, defend a guilty person. This question is troubling for two reasons.

First, our justice system in the United States is based on the core principle than an accused person is innocent until proven guilty. This is something that many people forget when reading about troubling cases and violent crimes. However, until an offense is proven through trial or confession, an accused person should not only be considered innocent under the law, but also treated as innocent by the media and public.

In addition, every person deserves a fair trial and equal protection of law under the U.S. Constitution. This is the basis of the freedom we have in the United States. The role of a public defender, then, is to ensure that each individual’s Constitutional rights are honored, regardless of his or her income and alleged crime.

The second reason that the question is troubling is the unspoken assumption that people who commit crimes are beyond redemption. Despite the social stigma that comes with the “criminal” label, a person who commits a crime is still a human being. He or she not only deserves a fair trial, but also deserves to be treated with the same compassion and dignity that a person with no criminal record would expect to receive.

Treating a person with a “lock ‘em up and throw away the key” mentality strips him (or her) of worth and humanity. Without those values, a person convicted of a crime has little personal hope that his situation will change. The way that judges, attorneys and the public treat him creates in him a self-fulfilling prophecy that he is destined for failure. His experience in prison, surrounded by other hardened “criminals” who have also lost hope for rehabilitation, increases the likelihood that he will commit another crime upon release.

In addition, a person who has been in prison may find it nearly impossible to get a job or safe housing. If he has no food and cannot receive public assistance due to his criminal record, theft becomes a highly tempting means of survival. In this way, poverty and a criminal record create an endless cycle of crime.

This is not a suggestion that we close prisons and take away consequences for crimes. On the contrary, there are a number of people who benefit greatly from the structured environment of prison and should be kept separate from the public. I do suggest, however, that we treat prisoners and offenders with compassion and employ clemency whenever possible. St. Louis County, for example, has groundbreaking “special courts” for people convicted of alcohol and drug offenses. These courts meld justice and mercy by using alternative sentencing programs to help people who are not an immediate danger to the public but still require accountability for their crimes.

It is possible for a person to give up his rights as a free citizen when he chooses to act in a way that brings legal consequences. It is not possible, however, for him to give up his humanity and his right to be treated with dignity and compassion.