"Law And Order"

Politics is a pendulum. Action on those issues where the two sides disagree swings... back and forth, back and forth, with drift akin to precession altering the two sides' positions over time.

Recent years have seen the "law and order" pendulum swing in the woke-progressives' direction, due in no small part to the George Floyd and Breonna Taylor killings. As is so typical of government, the reform effort was botched badly. Changes that should have been made, weren’t. In their stead, we got ivory-tower, broad-brush "remedies" that translated to increased lawlessness and the State's abandonment of its duty to 'serve and protect' the citizenry.

Public outcry (not all of it justified, but set that aside for now) has prompted opposition candidates (and more than a few reformers) to promise a restoration of law and order. True-blue New York City even made a former cop mayor, after years of trash-talking the city's police. "Defund the Police" types are retconning themselves and gaslighting us. Candidates are running "tough on crime" platforms.

It's good to cast a skeptical eye at changes that didn't work for the public good, but...

Here comes the "however."

It remains that there are problems in law enforcement in America. Problems significant enough to warrant real action. The "blue wall of silence" culture that protect bad cops remains unchallenged, as does the qualified immunity that shields those bad cops from punishment. The nuisance laws and civil asset forfeiture practices that turn poor communities into revenue centers ("policing for profit") and produce outcomes like Eric Garner's death are also still around. No-knock warrants, small town SWAT teams, and prosecutors who are more interested in convictions than justice also remain on the books.

The last bit is what I want to highlight today.

Consider the case of Areli Escobar, on death row. Convicted on DNA evidence produced by a police lab that was shut down for its incompetence, and despite the prosecutor who put him away joining the calls for a new trial, he was nevertheless denied one by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, and has only a final hail-Mary to the Supreme Court standing between him and lethal injection.

Consider Kamala Harris's sordid record of prosecutorial abuse.

Consider my recent mention of prosecutors continuing to use bite-mark analysis despite it having been debunked as a reliable means of identifying suspects.

More examples of prosecutorial misconduct here.

And, as the cherry on the mud pie, ponder disgraced Mississippi coroner Steven Hayne, whose testimony wrongly convicted far too many.

Criminal prosecutors' first fealty should be to the truth: to getting the right person convicted. Anything less is a betrayal of the victims and of society itself. Locking up innocents is supposed to be anathema. "Better to let 10 (or 100) guilty persons escape, than that 1 innocent suffer," and all that. Victims deserve justice, not "we threw somebody* in jail, so you can feel better." Society needs the actual bad actors be punished more than it needs prisons filled by whomever is available.

We shouldn't be content with the law enforcement pendulum swinging to the right. Undoing the progressives's mistakes isn't enough. Improving public safety isn't merely about giving power back to the cops and installing 'tough-on-crime' prosecutors. It must be about doing the right thing: prosecuting and convicting only those guilty of crimes against others, culling the bad apples from within LE and prosecutorial ranks, elevating "getting it right" above personal scorecards, ceasing egregious practices like policing-for-profit, and serving victims of crime rather than creating more victims of government.

Most importantly, we need to demand the most accountability of those with the most power. Corruption and misdeed, in law enforcement, in the courts, and amongst politicians (not just the bribed, but the pay-to-play folks in the pockets of the carceral industry) should be our biggest priority. Think such are rare and/or exaggerated? Read this bit, and see if it changes your mind.

Undoing the foolishness of the woke is not enough. The reforms their stupid ideas displaced should be put on the front burner.

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Peter.