Friends, I'm sorry to say that today's diary is another "almost rant."
I heard the story directly from the couple that this happened to last week, yes, in Chattanooga.
Let me set the scene.
The couple consists of an attractive blond woman, under thirty years old. She has leukemia, and is on interferon and other heavy duty medications, including medications for her pain. She has Hep C. She also has a 8 month old baby boy. (He is the cutest baby I have ever seen, and is a really, really good baby!) She is just barely managing to work a desk job, which pays so much money that she still qualifies for food stamps and Medicaid. The man is slightly over forty. His fingers were amputated and sewn back on his hands some years ago. He does not have full use of them. He can't really read, and he can't go back to his job of running heavy equipment. He is fighting to get SS Disability and Medicaid. He also has some problems related to the death of his teenage son several years ago. The baby is not his, yet he cares for that child better than I could. He takes care of the baby every day, so the mother can work. Then he takes care of the mother on the days she takes her treatments, and can't stand on her own. They do not own a car. They depend on the bus for transportation. They live a very quiet moderate life now.
Thier problem:
Several months ago, the woman had a grand mal seizure, and she hit her head. She went to the ER in an ambulance, where she had 3 more serious seizures. Because of the blow to her head, and because they did not have her history, the hospital assumed spousal abuse as the cause of the seizures, and they called the police. The detective wrote out a statement from her less than 15 minutes after her 4th seizure, and while she was on IV anti-seizure medication. She does not remember signing it. Her partner was arrested for beating her up. When she really woke up, and was told what had happened, she detracted her statement. However, the state took the case up anyway. They also put an order of protection in place. So far, this doesn't sound too bad right?
Follow me below the fold for the insanity.
Now, feeling that the order of protection was just plain stupid (and in their case it was), they violated it by staying together. She could not take care of herself and the baby and work, without the assistance of her partner. They simply did what they needed to do to survive.
Over the course of the next few months they were in court repeatedly. Each time the woman explained why the "statement" wasn't valid. At one point, the prosecutor threatened to arrest her unless she would say that her inital statement was the truth. She had to hire a lawyer to protect her. The state continued to prosecute the man. He finally hired a competent lawyer. The charges were dismissed.
BUT: The day the charges were dropped, the prosecutor saw the couple leave court together. The order of protection was slated to be dropped less than a week later. The next day, the man was arrested for violating the order, and held without bail.
If he had not gotten out immediatly ( it took 4 days), she would have been unable to continue working. They would have ended up joining the homeless family that camps out on the greenway 500 feet from here. They are already struggling to hang on here in this cheap motel. It takes both of them, working together, for either of them to survive. If the state had any interest in helping them, they would find them somewhere decent to live. Obviously, all the prosecutor cares about is the notch on his belt.
Now, on to the real problem I am trying to bring to light. Although, I think this one case can be argued several different ways, this one case IS NOT THE POINT.
Picture this poor, disabled, uneducated man closed up in an overcrowded jail, where he was sleeping on the floor. He had no way to even use a phone, as he had no cash on his commissary card. His lawyer tried to explain his options to him. The state offered him immediate release, with unsupervised probation if he pled guilty to a lesser charge. Or, plead not guilty, and have it take maybe as long as 30 days to get them to set bond. Quite a choice, and not quite fair. He took the deal, most defendants do.
The problem, which I have heard about from dozens of people who have had dealings with the system, is that so many arrests are WRONG, that the system, in order to prevent law suits, pressures defendants into pleading guilty to SOMETHING. By agreeing that they are guilty, they loose the opportunity to sue for wrongful arrest.
I think the system is so broken that we need to trash it, and start over. I have no idea exactly what we would replace it with, but I am sure whatever we came up with would be better than what we have now.
Is this a conspiracy theory? I don't think it is. I think it is an observation of fact.
Unfortunately, Mr & Mrs America, in order to feel safe, chooses to believe that only guilty people are arrested. Or, if they are not guility of that specific crime, they must have done something.
Wake up PLEASE! Don't wait until your door is knocked down during the execution of a no knock warrant, and your children are drug out of their beds in the middle of the night, while booted men tear you home up looking for "evidence." It happens every day to people here in America. It happens to the innocent as well as the guility. We are equal opportunity after all!