That is the title of this must read op ed in today's Nw York Times by Michelle Alexander.
Let me offer a couple of snippets.
AFTER years as a civil rights lawyer, I rarely find myself speechless. But some questions a woman I know posed during a phone conversation one recent evening gave me pause: “What would happen if we organized thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of people charged with crimes to refuse to play the game, to refuse to plea out? What if they all insisted on their Sixth Amendment right to trial? Couldn’t we bring the whole system to a halt just like that?”
And this:
The Supreme Court ruled in 1978 that threatening someone with life imprisonment for a minor crime in an effort to induce him to forfeit a jury trial did not violate his Sixth Amendment right to trial. Thirteen years later, in Harmelin v. Michigan, the court ruled that life imprisonment for a first-time drug offense did not violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Please keep reading.
I teach government, both a regular level class required for graduation from Maryland high schools, Local State and National Government, and AP US Government & Politics.
As such, I spend a lot of time on the Supreme Court.
Look again at the quote just above the squiggle to see some of the problems with the Supreme Court.
Allow me to again quote Alexander:
The system of mass incarceration depends almost entirely on the cooperation of those it seeks to control. If everyone charged with crimes suddenly exercised his constitutional rights, there would not be enough judges, lawyers or prison cells to deal with the ensuing tsunami of litigation.
One of the most effective things teachers can do is not strike, but work to rule: if we refuse to correct papers and plan outside of school, if we refuse to give our work for free, our public schools would come to a grinding halt.
Similarly, if everyone insisted upon their constitutional rights in every case of criminal accusations . . . .
Alexander in her exchange with Susan Burton, the focus of much of the op ed, wondered to what she might not plead guilty if it meant she could get back to her children. She asked Burton,
“I truly can’t imagine risking life imprisonment, so how can I urge others to take that risk — even if it would send shock waves through a fundamentally immoral and unjust system?”
I am going to offer with no subsequent commentary from me, the final paragraph from the op ed. Let me first note this - those of us who did civil disobedience during the civil rights movement that there were no guarantees, that we might be imprisoned or worse.
Unless some of us, many of us, are willing to put ourselves at risk, real change might not be possible.
So I remind you opf what those who signed the Declaration of Independence committed to :
And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.
And now, how Burton responded to Alexander:
Susan, silent for a while, replied: “I’m not saying we should do it. I’m saying we ought to know that it’s an option. People should understand that simply exercising their rights would shake the foundations of our justice system which works only so long as we accept its terms. As you know, another brutal system of racial and social control once prevailed in this country, and it never would have ended if some people weren’t willing to risk their lives. It would be nice if reasoned argument would do, but as we’ve seen that’s just not the case. So maybe, just maybe, if we truly want to end this system, some of us will have to risk our lives.”