~ Diary originally published on Linked In Pulse
Contrary to what many if not most Americans seem to think, U.S. state and federal judges are not graced with an official choice to implement or disregard the rule of law. Petitioning them for corresponding relief is neither a test of clout, nor primarily an appeal to their "moral sense". Also, America's judiciary cannot transform legal action into an act or acts of futility by contravening the rule of law. You see, justice is not a gift of U.S. judges to an awaiting public. It only seems to be for Americans who lack the wherewithal to insist on appropriate judicial accountability.
To many people, Assata Shakur is the antithesis of accountability and no more than a cop killer. In 2013, she became the first woman and second U.S. convicted criminal placed by the FBI on its Most Wanted Terrorist List. Assata escaped prison in 1979 and fled to Cuba where she remains under political asylum. She claims to have been "left with no other choice than to flee from the political repression, racism and violence that dominate the U.S. government’s policy towards people of color." The statement rings true to many people as evidenced by wide scale
celebration of Assata's recent birthday.
From the intense controversy of Assata's life, I plucked this quote attributed to her:
Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.
Given the title of my post and staunch legal reform advocacy, one may think I generally perceive U.S. judges as an oppressive group of people. Rather than the nature of judges, my focus is on the fact that repression and oppression can be and has been accomplished through abuses of judicial power in America.
The pictured quote of Assata hearkens to the folly of measuring the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of grassroots efforts to overcome judicial system corruption based almost exclusively on the obvious responsiveness or unresponsiveness of government to related petitions for relief. This "results" orientated mentality leaves too many people in a schism: either reverencing or disdaining influential lawyers (and other advocates) depending on whether they achieve or thwart justice; win or lose. Hence the adage . . .
But the nature, and sometimes the quality of an advocate's tactics matter, especially in high-stakes quests for justice.
Lines tend to get drawn between proverbial good guys and bad guys when corruption is entrenched. Attorneys (or any advocate) inclined and able to regularly flout the law through professional and/or political connections are unlikely to be servants of justice. Yet countless people retain these "bad guys" for that task and pay a hefty fee for the privilege only to eventually realize their "representative" is more a servant of expediency; more in the business of sacrificing than serving justice.
Regardless of how influential an individual, law firm, or NGO may or may not be, the "good guys" among them rely on law, sound public policy, and the rule of law to prevail. Of course, as Assata suggests, truth and righteousness can be a hard sell. Something also suggested by Assata's featured quote and too often missed by people experiencing serious miscarriages of justice in America is this: vindication is about lawfully compelling, and not merely asking U.S. authorities to honor their obligations and your rights.
Contrary to what many if not most Americans seem to think, U.S. state and federal judges are not graced with an official choice to implement or disregard the rule of law. Petitioning them for corresponding relief is neither a test of clout, nor primarily an appeal to their "moral sense". Also, America's judiciary cannot transform legal action into an act or acts of futility by contravening the rule of law. You see, justice is not a gift of U.S. judges to an awaiting public. It only seems to be for Americans who lack the wherewithal to insist on appropriate judicial accountability.
While its contours vary, judicial accountability in the face of systemic misconduct is almost always a process of identifying contraventions of law, troubling public policy implications, ethical lapses, the unresponsiveness of criminal law enforcement agencies, and human rights violations as well as proposing and pursuing sound solutions for these problems. A little more than one year ago today I proposed that to manage the task, participants should be or become "Enlightened Narcissists". Reasonable minds may disagree about the premises of that 2014 post, but this point is fairly certain . . . at least it seems Assata would agree: Mustering the stamina to accomplish judicial accountability in the face of deep seated corruption is one thing; expecting ruthless, often wealthy, powerful forces to spare their targets the effort is quite another.
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Attorney Zena Crenshaw-Logal, Executive Director*
National Judicial Conduct and Disability Law Project, Inc.
"The Law Project", www.njcdlp.org
7519 W. 77th Avenue
Crown Point, IN 46307
(o) 219.865.6774 Ext. 1
(tf) 888.478.4439 Ext. 1
(f) 219.865.6355
(e) contactus@njcdlp.org
*Bar admissions limited to the 7th Cir. C.O.A.