The Accused Go Free: Two Sides, Mirror Images : Justice: Both hard-liners and civil libertarians should appreciate that niceties of law will at times produce outrage.
There is a central paradox in the Rodney King fallout--the paradox of police accountability. If one seeks to hold the police accountable for their actions, one will confront problems characteristic of all criminal-justice systems. Treating an officer accused of abuse is similar to treating a citizen accused of criminal behavior. Due-process standards must be applied to ensure that those accused of misconduct are treated fairly. Standards of proof must be defined, which, if not met, will ensure the exoneration of those improperly accused, whether they are cops or citizens.
The paradox is that the process of holding the police accountable will run across the same central problem that the criminal justice system does; it will on occasion free the substantively guilty on procedural grounds. It is here that there may be some possibility of progress in the current crisis.
In considering the verdicts in the Rodney King beating case, and anticipating the trial of those accused of attacking truck-driver Reginald Denny, law-and-order hard-liners may better appreciate the everyday due-process concerns of civil libertarians. They might understand how the accused officers, apparently “guilty as hell” on videotape, were allowed counsel, time to prepare a defense and legal securities of various sorts. Following these constitutional due-process protections, which exist to limit the powers of government over the everyday citizen, the officers were found “not guilty “ (as might possibly happen to Denny’s attackers).
The King verdict might also illustrate to the civil-liberties lobby how frustrated cops and most citizens have become with the procedural niceties of the system. When substantially guilty criminals go free, or plea-bargain themselves into spending little or no time in jail for their crimes, the outrage of the average American is manifest.
Civil libertarians are outraged that the cops go free. Will they take a moment to understand that this happens every day in America? Will they open their minds to learn something about how frustrated everyday people are about criminals going free on a regular basis?
On the other hand, will law-and-order proponents take time to realize that these police officers were protected by precisely the same sorts of “procedural technicalities” against which they regularly protest? Behind which Denny’s assailants will hide?
The incidents and their fallout have been a tragedy for everyone concerned. Yet all Americans might profit from a moment of calm reflection about the criminal justice system, from those who regularly battle over its imperfections.