Does Anyone Care about Justice Anymore?
by Mark Franke
Against my better judgment I have followed some of the news about President Donald Trump’s indictment. I’m not a lawyer and have never played one on TV so I can’t offer a considered opinion on the outcome. That, and not having read the legal documents containing the charges nor heard any of the defense, relegates any comment I might make to simple prejudice.
But then, it seems that condition afflicts almost everyone else. A recent ABC News poll showed 86% of Democrats believed him guilty and 67% of Republicans believed him innocent. I will hazard a guess that none of the poll respondents have firsthand knowledge of the facts or legal issues. It just comes down to a “I hate Donald Trump” so he must (read: I want him to) be guilty. Or, I love Donald Trump and he is (read: I want him to be) innocent.
The Founding Fathers must be rolling over in their graves to see what has become of our justice system and, worse, the attitudes citizens have about it. Too many see it simply as a means to a political end and not an essential pillar of our republic.
It’s not just Donald Trump. Every time the Supreme Court issues a ruling, the justices are praised or condemned for the effect of what they decided and not why they issued that opinion. It doesn’t matter what the Constitution says or whatever established legal precedents are in place. The Supreme Court is just one more ideological battleground, exactly not what jurists such as John Marshall worked to achieve.
Let’s be honest: Do we, any of us, want the Supreme Court to rule strictly on the Constitution or simply do what we want?
We have reduced an exemplary justice system, one based on endowed natural rights and Anglo-Saxon common law, to the equivalent of a raucous sporting event at which everyone boos the referees after each call.
Maybe that is just one unfortunate side effect of participatory democracy, a behavior to be tolerated but should not be allowed to run amok. “No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise,” according to Winston Churchill. Democracy is messy, as many have said.
But that is not an excuse for the torpor-like state of our love of liberty.
What has happened to the great principles of Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence? Are the Sixth, Seventh and Fourteenth amendments reduced to empty words found in a dead and irrelevant document? Do we no longer believe in “innocent until proven guilty” or that everyone deserves his day in court?
I don’t know if Donald Trump is guilty or innocent of these charges. I am willing to let the legal system decide that, hopefully free of undue political pressure from politicians and toxic coverage by the national news media. All this, of course, assumes a fair and impartial jury can be found. Presumably that will eliminate most of the responders to the ABC News poll quoted above.
Two questions must be answered. What about the other ex-presidents and high government officials who kept classified documents for their eventual presidential libraries or other archival use? And more importantly, are we accelerating down the slippery slope of using a theoretically non-political judiciary as a tool for prosecuting (persecuting, some would argue) political grievances against office holders as soon as they return to private status?
There is a precedent for this second situation.
Republican Rome had what it thought to be a constitution that it considered exemplary but somewhat complicated in structure. The complexity was evolutionary but each added layer was put there for the republican purpose of interposing a system of checks and balances. Magistrates were restrained in imperium, the exercise of authority, by their colleagues in office or by any of three popular assemblies or by the Senate itself. Eventually political antagonists lost patience with the legal constraints that they viewed as unacceptable roadblocks to their agendas.
One political tactic was to immediately prosecute a magistrate as soon as he lost the immunity of office. These outdoor trials were political theater at its worst. Mass demonstrations were incited and eventually morphed into mob violence and finally to armed conflict, Roman killing Roman. Armies pledged allegiance not to the Republic but to a politician cum general.
And that didn’t turn out so well. After three bouts of bloody civil war, Rome devolved into a military dictatorship which lasted centuries. Do we want to go there?
Altruism isn’t enough to induce a candidacy if now possible legal expense follows. Is an overweening ambition the last operative motivation for our public servants? I don’t mean to cast a net of aspersion over all candidates but, human nature being what it is, my money is on ambition over altruism as the prevailing characteristic when the votes are counted.
Mark Franke, M.B.A., an adjunct scholar of the Indiana Policy Review and its book reviewer, is formerly an associate vice-chancellor at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne.
Does Anyone Care about Justice Anymore?
by Mark Franke
Against my better judgment I have followed some of the news about President Donald Trump’s indictment. I’m not a lawyer and have never played one on TV so I can’t offer a considered opinion on the outcome. That, and not having read the legal documents containing the charges nor heard any of the defense, relegates any comment I might make to simple prejudice.
But then, it seems that condition afflicts almost everyone else. A recent ABC News poll showed 86% of Democrats believed him guilty and 67% of Republicans believed him innocent. I will hazard a guess that none of the poll respondents have firsthand knowledge of the facts or legal issues. It just comes down to a “I hate Donald Trump” so he must (read: I want him to) be guilty. Or, I love Donald Trump and he is (read: I want him to be) innocent.
The Founding Fathers must be rolling over in their graves to see what has become of our justice system and, worse, the attitudes citizens have about it. Too many see it simply as a means to a political end and not an essential pillar of our republic.
It’s not just Donald Trump. Every time the Supreme Court issues a ruling, the justices are praised or condemned for the effect of what they decided and not why they issued that opinion. It doesn’t matter what the Constitution says or whatever established legal precedents are in place. The Supreme Court is just one more ideological battleground, exactly not what jurists such as John Marshall worked to achieve.
Let’s be honest: Do we, any of us, want the Supreme Court to rule strictly on the Constitution or simply do what we want?
We have reduced an exemplary justice system, one based on endowed natural rights and Anglo-Saxon common law, to the equivalent of a raucous sporting event at which everyone boos the referees after each call.
Maybe that is just one unfortunate side effect of participatory democracy, a behavior to be tolerated but should not be allowed to run amok. “No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise,” according to Winston Churchill. Democracy is messy, as many have said.
But that is not an excuse for the torpor-like state of our love of liberty.
What has happened to the great principles of Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence? Are the Sixth, Seventh and Fourteenth amendments reduced to empty words found in a dead and irrelevant document? Do we no longer believe in “innocent until proven guilty” or that everyone deserves his day in court?
I don’t know if Donald Trump is guilty or innocent of these charges. I am willing to let the legal system decide that, hopefully free of undue political pressure from politicians and toxic coverage by the national news media. All this, of course, assumes a fair and impartial jury can be found. Presumably that will eliminate most of the responders to the ABC News poll quoted above.
Two questions must be answered. What about the other ex-presidents and high government officials who kept classified documents for their eventual presidential libraries or other archival use? And more importantly, are we accelerating down the slippery slope of using a theoretically non-political judiciary as a tool for prosecuting (persecuting, some would argue) political grievances against office holders as soon as they return to private status?
There is a precedent for this second situation.
Republican Rome had what it thought to be a constitution that it considered exemplary but somewhat complicated in structure. The complexity was evolutionary but each added layer was put there for the republican purpose of interposing a system of checks and balances. Magistrates were restrained in imperium, the exercise of authority, by their colleagues in office or by any of three popular assemblies or by the Senate itself. Eventually political antagonists lost patience with the legal constraints that they viewed as unacceptable roadblocks to their agendas.
One political tactic was to immediately prosecute a magistrate as soon as he lost the immunity of office. These outdoor trials were political theater at its worst. Mass demonstrations were incited and eventually morphed into mob violence and finally to armed conflict, Roman killing Roman. Armies pledged allegiance not to the Republic but to a politician cum general.
And that didn’t turn out so well. After three bouts of bloody civil war, Rome devolved into a military dictatorship which lasted centuries. Do we want to go there?
Altruism isn’t enough to induce a candidacy if now possible legal expense follows. Is an overweening ambition the last operative motivation for our public servants? I don’t mean to cast a net of aspersion over all candidates but, human nature being what it is, my money is on ambition over altruism as the prevailing characteristic when the votes are counted.
Mark Franke, M.B.A., an adjunct scholar of the Indiana Policy Review and its book reviewer, is formerly an associate vice-chancellor at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne.
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