There is no flawless justice system here on earth. That’s a fact. So, when it comes to justice and the death penalty, it is best to error on the side of Life.
Human error, prejudice, pride, ego, self-interest respecting one’s career, politics, the desire for fame and/or fortune, all of the above and more, are at play within attorneys, prosecutors, and even judges, when it comes to the practice of law, the pursuing of judicial processes, and the application of legal procedures. That is to say that justice, real bona fide, honest to goodness justice, can often be the last thing, if at all, that is on anyone’s mind within the judicial system and its procedures.
How else does one explain, for example, the fact that Terrance Williams’ initial prosecutors were guilty of withholding significant and important evidence in the original case, which resulted in Judge M. Teresa Sarmina (Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas) granting Williams a new hearing and a “stay of execution”? There is no doubt that Williams is guilty of murder; however, should he have received the death penalty? In light of extenuating evidence that heretofore had been deliberately withheld from the jury by his prosecutors, perhaps not.
Let’s be clear: When crimes are committed people are terribly hurt. Great loss is suffered, accompanied by much pain and heartache. Personal, emotional, and mental damage is done to the victim. Victim’s lives are forever changed in the wake of criminal action. And, the taking of life is the ultimate crime against humanity. Justice is wanted.
We can neither be naïve nor insensitive. We must not trivialize the impact of an offender’s criminal action against a victim. We respect the victim’s needs. And victims have many needs, the need to know ‘why me,’ for example, and the need to feel safe again, the need for healing, the need for restitution, among others; in short, the need for justice.
In the wake of a crime, society also has needs. Like victims, the community also has the need to feel safe and be secure. And like the victim, the community also has a need for reassurance and confidence that “it won’t happen again.” And so, society also needs to have justice.
But, even the offender has needs. Yes! Even the one who is guilty of committing a horrendous criminal act has needs that must be respected. For example, the criminal has the need to be treated humanely, not to be dehumanized. The criminal also needs to experience authentic justice. It ought to be restorative as well—for both victim and offender.
That is, what we all need and want is a humane and balanced system of justice that restores respect for life, sustains right over wrong, and allows for hope and renewal for all stakeholders in a crime—for victims, the community at large, and offenders.
In this nation, ‘we the people’ are the government. And as such, we need our government to have the same value and respect for life that we have for ourselves. And so we want holistic justice, justice that has integrity in all its procedures and processes, justice that is just in its means as well as in its ends. We want Restorative Justice, justice that gives people the opportunity to change and to find renewal and experience positive transformation.
Instead we seem to be going in the opposite direction. For example, we are building more prisons, not less. Over the years, we have been incarcerating more and more people even while the actual crime rate has either gone down or remained relatively the same. Why? Among other things it’s because we have chosen to support a one-size-fits-all, approach to our judicial system.
We have allowed fear and ignorance to dictate the processes and means of justice in our law courts, disempowering wise and discerning judges in favor of automatic laws that, by their very nature, being automatic as they are, have unjust and damaging consequences to both victim and offender.
Yes, we all want justice. We want goodness. We want what is right. We want what is fair. We also want what is healing and restorative. The sad fact is that, this knee-jerk reaction, seeking the death penalty for Terrance Williams, and others like him, guarantee us none of these things.
We cannot ignore the implication of this case. If we do not seek real and restorative justice for the likes of a Terrance Williams, it is only a matter of time before any one of us will wish that someone would have stood up for us, seeking authentic justice in our own case, when we feel we have been unfairly treated and unjustly handled by the system.
We demand better of our system. We, the people, seek and want a better way—holistic, healing and restorative justice that respects all stakeholders in a crime—victim, community, and offender—justice that provides the opportunity for offenders to change and transform and be renewed, and justice that assures peace, healing, and hope and security for the victim as well as the community at large.
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