Re:I Got Myself Arrested So I Could Look Inside the Justice ...
by darkarmani on Wednesday December 18, 2013 @04:05PM
(#6930742)
> If you want to term this "retaliation", I suppose technically you're right, but your characterization disregards the fact that they're human, with human emotions. I think one of the great mistakes people make when debating the flaws of the justice system is to assume that its people are somehow on a higher ethical pedestal than the rest of society, that somehow they should and must behave more correctly. Unfortunately, they don't, and so it's easy to find biases and injustices in the system.
Which is why there should be an accounting when someone reveals these humans letting their emotions get the best of them. To act like everyone has the same emotional control is absurd -- put people with better emotional control in power and not these people.
I think you missed my meaning. Cops, prosecutors, and judges are only human and they're going to react emotionally because that's what we humans are, hormonal emotional creatures.
In the case of the OP, he deliberately set out to test the system by committing a misdemeanor to see what they would do. It was so out of context for a white male in a nice suit to be doing graffiti that the first responders couldn't believe their eyes. They literally just tried to wave him off. Shouldn't have, but did. I imagine that you or I would have reacted similarly in those circumstances -- or are you perfectly rational in all your decisionmaking and split-second reactions? Highly doubtful.
I don't think it was embarrassment that he had exposed racism or profiling behavior or whatever he was obviously digging for. It was just that he was "one of them" and had betrayed their trust. They gave him the benefit of the doubt that he was not actually behaving like a 19-year-old gang banger, when in fact that was precisely what he was doing. Thus, they ultimately had to book him, take him downtown, fingerprint him, write up the charges etc. By the way, that's work. Lots of paperwork. And knowing that he's a criminal lawyer, they probably had to be extra fastidious -- the slightest little mistake or omission and for all they knew he was going to taking them to court.
I think it's perfectly natural that they reacted angrily to this guy, and threw the book at him, because it was as if he was trying to provoke an angry reaction. Thus as I said, he made his bed and now must sleep in it.
If you want to term this "retaliation", I suppose technically you're right, but your characterization disregards the fact that they're human, with human emotions. I think one of the great mistakes people make when debating the flaws of the justice system is to assume that its people are somehow on a higher ethical pedestal than the rest of society, that somehow they should and must behave more correctly. Unfortunately, they don't, and so it's easy to find biases and injustices in the system.