Really. We all kind of hope that reality — who is innocent, who is guilty, what punishment is warranted — will fall out of the justice system. But, really — it's primarily about making sure that the "due process" is followed, and if you get caught up in the gears, oh, well …
'"We can't be outcome driven," said Anne Tompkins, the U.S. attorney in Charlotte. "We've got to make sure we follow the law, and people should want us to do that."'
The "outcome" in this case being the release of men who are innocent of the charges brought against them because their crime has been declared not a crime.
These aren't necessarily nice people who are wrongly imprisoned. But, then, justice isn't about niceness either, one way or the other.
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This is just flat out wrong and needs to be fixed.
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U.S. Justice Department knowingly keeps innocent people in jail
The U.S. Justice Department says it can't be bothered to release dozens of legally innocent people they've imprisoned, reports USA Today.
Justice Department officials said it is not their job to notify prisoners that they might be incarcerated for something that they now concede is not a crime. And although they have agreed in court filings that the men are innocent, they said they must still comply with federal laws that put strict limits on when and how people can challenge their conviction…
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Due process was supposed to protect people from unfair treatment by their government. This is a case where that is clearly not happening, which means we need to revise what is called due process.
The argument made by the feds is that "due process" only has to do with conviction, not with "deconviction." The process due them in their trials was accomplished, hands washed, game over.
Probably it's better tackled under "cruel and unusual punishment."
An interesting and well grounded notion.
There is also the question of what role the Prison lobby has in this. Not that it's really a question.
Well, the prison lobby (whether we're speaking of prison unions or private prison corporations) certainly are incented to maximized prison populations. While this particular case doesn't affect them all that much, the general philosophy of "once they're in, they're in for the long haul" is in keeping with their interests.