Humor That Makes Us Laugh and Cry: Part I

Part I

It has been said that TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION. I always attributed this quote to well-known American author Mark Twain, along with the answer to the question, “why?:” That’s because fiction is limited by plausible explanations, whereas truth is not.
             Many of the truths I have witnessed have not only crossed the border into the realm of strangeness, but sadly are, in no small part, caused by the human foibles attached to mental health problems and alcohol and/or drug abuse. As 2014 begins, I intend to share the humor enclosed in my experiences on the bench, though it will be both sweet and sour. After all, humor cannot exist without roots to truth and sadness below its surface.

Picture this: A courtroom filled with defendants, defense attorneys, prosecuting attorneys, sheriff’s deputies, interpreters, witnesses and families of the defendant[1]. Of course there is a court reporter who “writes” down everything said during the proceedings, my staff, usually news reporters, police officers and myself. I’m moving right along with the list when the district attorney called the next case. A young man in handcuffs and ankle shackles walks in from the lock-up. He is visibly talking to himself. I read that the defendant was facing a drug charge and am also fully aware that street drugs are often used as a poor man’s prescription plan to treat mental health issues. When this occurs, the problems of anti-social behavior grow much worse because now a mentally disabled person is exhibiting deviant behavior with added complications from perhaps a low I.Q. and a drug addiction.

I felt confident in asking this young man if he was taking drugs to combat his mental health issues. In other words, let’s get to the point. Before any attorney spoke, he turned toward me and proudly responded to my question by saying “I don’t have a mental health issue you mother fucker!”

Needless to say, people can be their own worst enemy. After his proclamation, I didn’t do anything further with him and his contemptuous behavior. What’s the point? However, consider a child custody case where the father represented himself in the proceedings. He was requesting that I grant him primary physical custody of his child. Before we could even address the merits of his petition or the case itself, the clerk raised the court by announcing that court was in session and everyone was to please rise. The father didn’t and refused to do so. I do not take these things personally. Of course he is showing no respect for the court as an institution, but, imagine, he will soon stand before the same court asking that I right the wrong of his custody case because he clearly has the best intentions in his heart and mind regarding his children. To ensure his success, he introduces himself on his day in court, in essence, by proclaiming he will not follow the laws and will disregard authority. Despite a sheriff deputy’s suggestion to cooperate, he continued to refuse to stand. This is very telling.

Alcohol Abuse

It is not surprising that in my 22 years on the bench that I have seen my share of alcohol abuse cases.

·         People coming directly to court after being influenced to various degrees by alcohol consumption. (In other words, being drunk or under the influence of alcohol in court.)

·         A woman who appeared drunk for her guilty plea anticipated her immediate sentence of three days in jail. What is a judge to do? She was too drunk to knowingly enter a guilty plea. Should I have revoked her bail and put her in prison for the weekend so that when she was sober the court could properly dispose of the case? Draw your own conclusions.

·         People who cause or attempt to cause a variety of alterations regarding their court-ordered urine analysis. How? 1) Trying to substitute someone else’s urine 2) Giving a sample that revealed no alcohol in the system, but also showed the sample was not the appropriate temperature of approximately 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. It was in fact room temperature, almost like it was filled by dipping the cup into toilet water and submitting it as a legitimate sample. 3) People who look me in the eye and swear that they have not been drinking and immediately register a 2.2 on the portable breath test. 4) With a blood alcohol content of 4.0 registering on the adult probation’s portable breath test, a man came to court under the influence of alcohol, and except for the odor of alcohol, he didn’t talk or act as if he was.

Sadly, too many people have experienced the tragedy of alcohol abuse. From a D.U.I. arrest to a domestic violence issue, there is no one who can negatively influence the life of a child like his own mother or father. Of the wide spectrum of cases handled in court, the worst tragedies are homicide by vehicle while under the influence. Over the years, I have sentenced about 20 different defendants who found themselves in this situation. It’s sorrowful for many reasons. In some cases the defendant sits and cries hysterically as witness after witness comes forth and tells him or her about the victim who was shockingly taken from their lives in an instant. Spouse, father, mother, daughter, brother, son – the victim was a healthy, loving, and supportive rock of the family, but in a second was removed forever by a drunk driver for no reason at all.

These sentences for D.U.I. homicide by vehicle carry a mandatory minimum sentence of 3 to 6 years in prison. Once again, a judge has no option but to follow the prosecutor’s mandated sentence, when he, the district attorney chooses to invoke the mandatory, even if the judge believes that two wrongs (the tragic death of the victim and now the mandated sentence for the defendant perhaps being too long) don’t make a right.

Next week Part II: More humor that makes us both laugh and cry

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[1] These are important days for family members because they can see their loved one without having to travel 100 miles for a visit in a state prison.

Questions to Ponder Part II: Discriminatory Enforcement of our Criminal Lives

We have mostly enforced the tough on crime laws in the cities where politically, the people’s clout is minimal. Last week, I opened Part I by posing seven questions for the reader to ponder. The answer to each is found by sorting through the devastation that our criminal justice system has caused our cities to suffer in the last 40+ years, particularly the mounting casualties suffered by city residents as a result of the war on drugs. It’s much easier to pass tough laws and institute programs that impact minorities in our cities than if the legislative or executive branches did so in our suburbs. And it’s an endless cycle. The more we incarcerate the more the crime rate increases so that the general public clamors for tougher laws in the cities to deal with the burgeoning crime problem which is caused, at least to some degree by this tough on crime philosophy.

Of what do I speak? Examples range from mandatory minimum sentences for any drug transaction within 1,000 feet of a school to increasing violence by telling defendants who are arrested that the best way to have the mandatory minimum sentence dropped is by being a police informant to rat out others who use or possess drugs - friends, family, neighbors-anyone will do.

Snitches get stitches

He’s told that if his cooperation leads to many more arrests, that “accomplishment” will be taken into consideration by the prosecutor to get his sentence reduced. Sadly the criminal justice system is increasingly familiar with this threat (and promise). There is so much retaliation for cooperation with the police that there are plenty of eyewitnesses that fail to testify because of the harm that could be inflicted on them and their families.

The use of school zone mandatory minimum sentences has no definitive effect on crime[1]

The problem with mandatory minimum sentences for defendants within a thousand feet of a school zone is that city school zones are nearly always within 1,000 feet of the drug arrest, resulting in almost every city resident being subject to this tougher sentence. Whereas, almost the opposite is the case in the suburbs and in the country where of course a much higher rate of white people reside and where nearly every drug transaction is not within 1,000 feet of a school. So where is drug enforcement the greatest? Are “tough” drug laws effective? Is it logical? Has it worked?

Now, this “tough on drugs” law might at least appear to be a reasonable response to the drug problem if the facts were to tell us that. But they don’t. First of all we have arrested more people, seized more illegal drugs, destroyed the family structure and at the same time created a greater chance of violent retaliation for all the many drug informants. There should be no drug problem today. We should have won the war on drugs, but despite increasing law enforcement  in the cities, the drug problem hasn’t gotten better; it’s gotten worse. Furthermore, I’ve never had one school zone mandatory minimum sentence that actually involved a student, teacher or staff that was conducted on school property including school kids going to and from school.

I’m not saying drug deals don’t happen in school, however, we in Berks County have never once had a drug case within 1,000 feet of a school that had anything at all to even remotely do with a school property or school activities. In fact, most of the cases that get to court involve transactions that occur when school is not in session. Most are in the evening and middle of the night during the summer and on weekends in locations that may be as far as four blocks from a school, but still within 1,000 feet.

Crack cocaine v. powder

Crack cocaine is a drug of preference for minorities while powdered cocaine is mostly used by white people in the suburbs. For 25 years federal mandatory minimum sentences punished crack cocaine sales 100 times more than powder! In other words, possession with intent to deliver five grams of crack received the same mandatory minimum sentence as powder but only if the weight of the powder is 100 times greater, 500 grams. That discrepancy was criticized for many years because it discriminated against minorities – so they changed it. However, Congress did not make them equal in punishment for the same weight. It was reduced to 10 to 1. It’s still discriminatory but not as unfair an inequity as before – but still an inequity.

Stop and Frisk

In addition, some of the “enforcement” of drug laws come from police officers stopping minorities, asking for identification and ultimately permission to search them. These are not cases where the officer has any probable cause to believe any crime has or will occur or to reasonably suspect the citizen even possesses contraband or the fruits of any crime. There are hundreds of thousands of stop and frisk practices that occur in every major city in the United States every year! Philadelphia and New York, among others have faced civil litigation because 85-90% of all stops are of minorities. They don’t conduct stop and frisk in the suburbs or in the countryside, where more than 85-90% of people are white.

Conclusion

The war on drugs has failed. The drug problem’s worse than ever and also includes increased violence in our country and in other countries that fight this war. In the last decade, Mexico has cracked down on their drug problem. What is the result? The drug problem has grown worse and the murder rate has gone through the roof. There have been more than 50,000 violent deaths in Mexico in the last 10 years,  most in retaliation and range from victims who are a member of a different drug cartel, to elected officials who enforce the laws to those who provide evidence to the government in an attempt to help their own case.

Locally our prisons are bursting at the seams with drug offenders, most of which are small fish in the drug enterprise. If they were big fish, we would have greater results from the war on drugs. That’s logical. A few examples of the extremely large seizures throughout history in the U.S. and in other countries, and one must ask is the drug problem corrected? Is it even better today?: France 2013 – 1.4 tons of cocaine in 31 unclaimed suitcases in luggage on a flight from Caracus. During 1984 in Columbia, $1.2 billion worth of cocaine, which is 14 tons, was seized after a raid on a jungle lab controlled by Pablo Escobar. In 1989, a Los Angeles warehouse stored 21.4 tons or the equivalent of 1.38 billion powder doses of the drug. If not seized, it had a street value in Los Angeles of more than $6 billion. Drug agents also seized 13.8 tons of cocaine in Columbia in 2005 and the U.S. Coast Guard found 20 tons of powder on a Panamanian ship.

The annual budget for the PA Department of Corrections alone has increased 1900% from 1980 ($94 million) to today, as it is about to exceed $2 billion annually. And this does not include 50 prisons, and numerous halfway houses and federal prisons throughout Pennsylvania. What have they accomplished?

The family structure in our cities has deteriorated from the over incarceration of parents. We know that a higher percentage of minorities are living in our cities and that an inordinately higher percentage of the minority population is put in prison so far from home that family contact is impossible. (See footnote 2)

What can we do? Contact your legislator and request that we attack this problem from all aspects, not just by putting tougher crimes on the books and beefing up the city law enforcement presence as we’ve done over and over again in the past four decades.

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[1] This is the conclusion of the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing from its study conducted about four years ago, yet school zone mandatories continue in full force and effect in Pennsylvania.

[2]My wife recently retired as an elementary school counselor in the Reading School District. She and our grown daughter still make school visits to the kids as they progress through the grades. They decided to invite them to a lunch at our home over the holidays. One child couldn’t join them. Her mother was incarcerated, so the “separated” father seized the opportunity to stop paying child support by bringing her to live with him, thus cutting all contact the child had with her grandmother, who had raised the family, since mom went away. The grandmother told my wife she can’t invite the child to lunch because the father won’t answer her phone calls. She does know that dad is living with a 20-year-old mother of two. The young mother treats the child as an outcast, giving all her love and attention to her own children. The grandmother has hired an attorney to obtain custody of the child again. The mother? She is incarcerated at the opposite end of the state, an 8-hour drive to the state prison in Erie, Pennsylvania.

 

Under what circumstances do defendants become snitches or confidential informants? Questions to Ponder: Part I

Do drug law enforcement procedures and mandated sentencing laws contribute to poverty and violence in our cities?

Where are the gangs located?

Where are kids raised by a single parent or no parents?

Where do most of the inmates in prison come from?

Where has our family structure suffered the most?

Do we make the situation worse with our tough drug enforcement policy?


Earlier this year, a New York Times article written, by John Tierney, featured four reasons why so many city families who reside in low-income neighborhoods become trapped in poverty:

1. The parents can't find jobs and if they do, it's minimum wage, well below the poverty level.
2. The most lucrative job is one that, sadly, is most prevalent - illegal drug sales.
3. Incarceration follows. [1]

4. "Prison has become the new poverty trap," according to Bruce Western, a Harvard sociologist - " a routine event for poor African American men and their families creating an enduring disadvantage at the very bottom of society."

In late 2011, as a trial court judge of 20 years, I felt compelled to publish a book on this very subject. The entire second chapter of my book, Justice or Just This - A Constitutional Trespass (www.jeffreysprecher.com) is dedicated to the devastation of the family structure. For instance, women - most likely mothers - have incarceration rates 11 times greater now than 30 years ago.

The battles are fought in the city

We have lost the "war on drugs" and what's worse, taken far too many city residents prisoner. I firmly believe we have unintentionally declared war on our cities and the statistics prove it. Although illegal drug use is the same for blacks and whites, the incarceration rate per capita is not. We all have seen reports concluding African Americans have been arrested and imprisoned at a far greater rate than whites. Mr. Tierney points out such a statistic:

"Among African-Americans who have grown up during the era of mass incarceration, one in four has had a parent locked up at some point during childhood. For black men in their early 20s and early 30s without a high school diploma, the incarceration rate is so high - nearly 40 percent nationwide - that they're more likely to be behind bars than to have a job."

28 years of progress?

Mr. Tierney's article further shows , by graph, that children of inmates has increased in numbers five-fold from half a million in 1980 to over 2.5 million by 2008. At the same time the employment rate for black men without a high school diploma decreased from 60% employment in 1980 to just 28% in 2008 while the incarceration rate for black men without that degree increased from 10% in 1980 to nearly 40% in 2008.

Education is essential

A similar statistic is published on subway cars in Philadelphia: "Without a high school diploma, you're up to 66 times more likely to end up a defendant in the criminal justice system" (quoting the Public Broadcasting System).

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[1] And new prisons, especially those in Pennsylvania, are located far away which makes parental contact with the children back home expensive and nearly impossible to attain. (Quote from author)

Right or Just Popular? State and Church Decision Making.

The U.S. and its three equal branches of government that check and balance one another is the fairest and most effective form of government. It is the best, but remains imperfect. Certainly it is far better than an oligarchy, a dictatorship, the royal family governing the people, a monarchy et al.

All power corrupts. We’ve seen countless examples, even in America, that absolute power corrupts absolutely. With the implementation of checks and balances, it stands to reason that corruption will likely be detected and reported, and that consequences will follow for those who abuse their government-given power that citizens allocate to their leaders.

Corruption, its detection and prosecution, is not the only benefit of co-equal, separate branches of government monitoring those elected to office. Two of the three branches require that the will of the people be heard and carried out in the laws that are made.  The executive and the legislative branches are both perfect examples of representative government, of the people and for the people. If it’s popular, we’ll vote for it. But is the will of the people always what is best for the country? There is a third branch, one that protects against the others blindly following what the people want, to the point of infringing on the rights and freedoms of others. There are multiple examples of this process being followed throughout our nation’s history, especially with regard to those who have minimal political influence and thus suffer at the hands of those in power passing discriminatory laws.

Also, the “haves” control the making of laws sometimes directly designed and enforced to keep the “have-nots” in check. It is rarely explained by the “haves” as controlling the “have nots.” It is typically justified by the “haves” as necessary for the safety of the general public or to maintain the status quo. A violent crime being committed is a proper transition into passing a law that “over kills,” one that does more harm than good, that is popular without being just and that does not negatively impact “the haves,” but does the “have nots.” No legislation is really effective to begin with because these heinous crimes have occurred since the beginning of time. Even with tough laws that severely punish the perpetrator, crime continues to exist. Existing effective laws are almost always in place and thus the new law may seem like a good idea, but it isn’t. New laws often affect far more people than originally intended or if one is even able to zero in on the next perpetrator.

What is the byproduct of this type of political action? Why do these two branches traditionally attempt to pass popular laws that are not very effective? It is because the masses will support it because it also “appears” to be a sound idea. Thus it gets and/or keeps someone in political office. It is the oldest and most fundamental trick in the book. It keeps the politician popular. Despite not doing what is right, it is what is popular and leads to their re-election.

With one of the government’s branches it is not intended to be that way. By design, these public officials serve 10-year terms as judges in Pennsylvania as opposed to two or four-year terms, and then run for retention, not re-election. This is to ensure they will not be voted out of office if they do not follow the will of the people. The founding fathers would want the judiciary to do what is right, not just what is popular. They are the only ones protected against being forced to do only what is popular. Let’s go back in time to see what two powerful leaders did 2,000 years ago when faced with the question: right or popular?

                 Some Lessons from the Bible:  Is it Right or Just Popular?

“As soon as it was morning, the chief priest held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council. They bound Jesus, lead him away, and handed him over to Pilate.”

Now at the festival, he used to release a prisoner for them, anyone for whom they asked. Now a man called Barabbas was in prison with the rebels who had committed murder during the insurrection. So the crowd came and began to ask Pilate to do for them according to his custom. Then he answered them, “Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?” For he realized it was out of jealousy that the chief priests had handed him over. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release Barabbas for him instead. Pilate spoke to them again, “Then what do you wish me to do with the man you call the King of the Jews?” They shouted back, “Crucify him.” Pilate asked them, “Why, what evil has he done?” But they shouted all the more, “Crucify him.” So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released Barabbas for them, and after flogging Jesus, he handed him over to be crucified.

“By a perversion of justice he was taken away. Who could have imagined his future? For he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people. They made his grave with the wicked and his tomb with the rich, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.”

(Retold from Mark 15: Verses 1-15)

Pontius Pilate did what was popular, not what was right, in his decision to crucify Jesus. How many powerful people paint themselves in a corner, and/or choose the easiest path over the most difficult? Is it right, or just popular? Is it the easy way? Is it justice or it just is. Let’s take a look at King Herod and the leadership decision he made.

King Herod had stolen his brother’s wife, Herodias, and John the Baptist criticized him for doing this. Herod at his birthday party told his daughter he would give her any gift she wanted. She had just finished entertaining his powerful friends with a sultry dance. Her mother (the wife that was stolen) wanted revenge against John the Baptist for criticizing her and Herod, and so she told the daughter to ask for the head of John the Baptist on a silver platter.

The king was sorry, but he was embarrassed to break his oath in front of his guests. Herodias wanted John killed in revenge but without Herod’s approval, she was powerless. This leader, in front of many other leaders and politicians at the party, had a choice to either tell her how immoral she was for her request or to grant the wish, and not renege on the promise. John the Baptist was beheaded. (from Mark 6: 16-30)

This is America - be what you want to be.

Every time I speak to children, such as when the D.A.R.E. program was in our public schools, I always speak of the pursuit of a dream and how in America you can be almost anything you want to be. We live in the greatest country in the world. I’m proud to live in the United States and would not have it any other way. It is truly the land of opportunity.

I’m a perfect example of this. Until the last months of my senior year of high school, I wasn’t sure I even wanted to go on to college. As with so many other high school kids, I had uncertainty (to say the least) about what I wanted to do when, and if, I grew up. I was at least certain that I could succeed if I worked hard. Not everyone saw it that way. I’ll never forget what my high school counselor told me. He said I’d never get into college if I applied and if I did get in, I’d never finish.

That reminds me of a “retired” doctor whom I’m proud to call my friend. He told me he worked in a laboratory in his first year of medical school and thus was told he was not required, as his fellow students were, to take his chemistry labs. I guess they never told his professor that. To his dismay, he received a failing grade in chemistry and was informed by his professor that he would have to study chemistry all summer and then pass a very difficult exam to make up for his absences. All he had to do to get a passing grade was to do the “make up work.”

His family had received his grade report for the semester and their reaction to the failing grade in chemistry ranged from utter shock to deep disappointment. You see, Doc, in my opinion, is a genius and he should certainly never fail any grade, and his family knew this. Well, the summer was a blur for my friend. He studied for long hours – everyday. Doc did eventually pass that nearly impossible chemistry exam. His medical studies continued and after a long successful career as a treating physician he is spending his “retirement” in his laboratory researching for medical advances in areas of critical illness including diabetes. He admits he was forced that summer to suffer his way into the ultimate position of a top medical chemist, for which he is renowned today throughout the world. That summer of hell earned him the advanced knowledge of chemistry, the most essential of sciences which has greatly benefited him to this day.

Perhaps that’s what my counselor had in mind; perhaps he didn’t. I’ll never know because that was 45 years ago.

The point of this story is you can and should be what you want to be. You can do it. You only need the passion, the drive, the commitment. Everyone should follow their dream. It’s an exciting, unpredictable journey, sometimes with unanticipated wondrous results. Ah, the doors that open and the people you meet.

Who knows even in high school what they are going to be. Even in college, changes in direction are usually made an average of three times before graduation. I personally am an example of this as is my genius friend. He completed seminary and was expected to be a priest. He also had enrolled in the military and was a sniper in the marine corp. His medical career was Doc’s final change. Me – well, I match that in the number of times I changed my major in college: Phys. Ed. (Coaching), the ministry and you know the rest of my story. 

Wherever you live, whatever the challenges you face now or as you travel on your life’s journey, FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS. It was my dream in the study of law; it was Doc’s dream to be a doctor.

People came to the USA from all over the world to obtain a better job and/or the education that is not available back home and the life that they dream of having for themselves and their families.

Dare to dream.

 

Trial by Impartial Jury: Part II

Celebration of the Anniversary of the signing of the U.S. constitution:

Words of wisdom from the author

Trial by an impartial jury.

PART II

Alas the founding fathers did reconcile the prejudice, passions, local interests and selfish views that we all have. We’re human, not infallible. I mention this because we all must get along and work out our prejudices, passions, local interest and selfish views. If they did it then why can’t we do it now? And this reconciliation among 12 strangers is what every jury must accomplish in every case in order to render a fair and just verdict.

What a difficult, challenging task we assign them. The jurors are hard working, dedicated and true-hearted in their determination of what is justice in each case they hear and are the best example of the people checking and balancing their government. It’s up to the jury to decide if the government’s action taken, including arrest and incarceration of a fellow citizen is justified under the circumstances.

The Trayvon Martin Case

1.       The jury did their job and it did so by considering both the evidence and the legal instruction from the court. Reminder: the presumption is not guilty unless  and until being proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt by the prosecution who bears this lofty burden in all criminal cases.

2.       The jury is the ultimate check and balance on government action taken. It’s not we full-time professionals who make the decision but the citizens who are given the impactful task. I get goose bumps every time I speak to jurors after their verdict. They are called in from their busy lives to complete the almost impossible task of how to do justice.

3.       Regardless of whether the stand-your-ground law may or may not have an impact on this case, the issue has now been raised and debated and must be further addressed. For 400 years the castle doctrine has been law. Eight years ago Florida adopted a new stand-your-ground statute. 20 other states have since done the same.

                                                   Important questions to answer:
Is this good for society? We’ve got to review our work and see if that law has been a mistake or at least is in need of renovation (or overhaul). We must revisit and debate the concept of retreating to the wall if you are able to safely do so. This was always required, except in your home (castle). We had this duty to retreat to avoid a deadly encounter. If we for some reason now encourage a deadly encounter, is this what is best for society? Has this change resulted in some more violent behavior and the increase in gun purchases? The right of self defense conceived and developed under the castle doctrine was in place as the law for the last 400 years. Hasn’t it evolved sufficiently in four centuries to make stand your grand laws not necessary?

4.       Finally and most importantly shouldn’t we seize this opportunity to take a probing view of our criminal justice system? This has been called for by many citizen groups in recent years and in fact has actually been done.

This is what they Evangelical Lutheran Church of America did for the last five years and now demands reform in the criminal justice system. Shouldn’t we seize this opportunity to intelligently discuss these issues today?

Nearly all the experts agree that mandatory minimum sentences should be eliminated but politicians are afraid to do so because of being voted out of office for being labeled soft on crime. I firmly believe that sentencing discretion has been taken from the judiciary and replaced by the prosecution offering guilty plea bargains that are too often being accepted by the defendant solely to avoid the risk of a mandated longer sentence being imposed by the prosecutor with the sentencing judge having no discretion!

I also call for the abolishment of sentencing commissions because the sentence is determined by point values and the prosecution rarely will go below the recommended guideline ranges because it’s easier and more popular to simply follow the recommendation. So who truly now does the sentencing?  The PA Commission on Sentencing boasts that we judges in Pennsylvania follow these recommendations in 90% of the cases. I repeat, who is doing the sentencing? Shouldn’t it be returned by the prosecutor and the sentencing commission to the judges who were elected to do that job?

All across this great country, sentencing discretion, harsh mandated sentences, racial and class issues, overcrowding of prisons by being the highest incarcerating country in the world and the high costs of fighting these wars on drugs must be studied by the citizens.

Out of such discussion comes reform.

Next week: Who really does the sentencing in Pennsylvania?

Trial by an impartial jury: Part I

Celebration of the Anniversary of the Signing of the U.S. Constitution:

Words of wisdom from the author

Trial by an impartial jury.

NBC 10@ Issue

PART I

On Friday, July 19, my wife Jane and I traveled to the television studio of NBC 10 on City Ave in the great City of Brotherly Love.  I’m honored to have been invited to discuss legal issues in the Florida trial of George Zimmerman who was found not guilty a few weeks before on charges of the murder of Trayvon Martin.

The Summer of 1787

 Some might find it surprising that my thoughts turned to what was occurring in Philadelphia 226 years earlier. I guess that’s just the way I think, but in my defense I had just finished preparing  for participation in this half hour T.V. program and, as commonly happens,  the United States Constitution was again pulled from the shelf.

We all know that in the long, hot summer of 1787, the founding fathers were laboring and debating the colossal challenge of establishing the structure of government for a new country. The reader recognizes the anniversary of its signing on September 17, 1787.  

In his letter which was read before the vote was called for the adoption of this “imperfect document”, Ben Franklin wrote:

 “I doubt too whether any other convention we can obtain, may be able to make a better constitution. For when you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men, all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests and their selfish views.”

He pleaded with each objector to “doubt a little of his infallibility and to make manifest our unanimity, to put his name on this instrument.”

The wisdom from all that brain power has lived on in the history of mankind. We must continue to inform the people of what we believe can be learned from the experience – what can we do to continue to make this a better world.

Alas the founding fathers did reconcile the prejudice, passions, local interests and selfish views that we all have. We’re human, not infallible. I mention this because we all must get along and work out our prejudices, passions, local interest and selfish views. If they did it then why can’t we do it now?

And this reconciliation among 12 strangers is what every jury must accomplish in every case in order to render a fair and just verdict.  What a difficult, challenging task we assign them! The jurors are hard working, dedicated and true-hearted in their determination of what is justice in each case they hear and are the best example of the people checking and balancing their government. It’s up to the jury to decide if the government’s action taken, including arrest and incarceration of a fellow citizen is justified under the circumstances.

Next week, Part II The Constitution, trial by jury and the Trayvon Martin Case, to be published on my new blog http://justiceorjustthisjudgesprecher.blogspot.com/, on November 13, 2013.