I remember listening to
the song “What’s Your Mommas Name” over the radio when I was eleven and, along
with thinking about marrying Tanya Tucker one day, I thought it was a nice tune
but unrealistic because the courts would never convict someone without any
evidence and mature adults are not that quick to jump to the conclusion that a
man is a child molester. It didn't take long to realize I was wrong, and since
then I have known men to serve time without any evidence against them, and
everywhere I've been I've come across "mature adults" that are quick
to jump to conclusions and make me think of that song.
A real eye opener for me
was when a friend was convicted of sexually molesting a little girl in the
1990s, spent a couple years in prison and was going to be on probation for
fifty years and a registered sex offender the rest of his life, but was
eventually exonerated and won a lawsuit against the State of Florida because
there was no evidence, and the case should have never gone to court. (The
girl’s grandmother was in the same room with him and the girl when the
molestation was supposed to have occurred.) It was a little shocking to realize
that in an emotionally charged case a prosecutor can persuade a jury to return
a guilty verdict without any evidence.
A severe crime, such as
child molesting, should have a severe penalty. But we need to be careful to
make sure we are requiring hard evidence for a conviction before we attach a
severe penalty to the conviction. Otherwise, we create a situation in which
emotionally charged cases easily change a fair system of justice into a witch
hunt in which the accused is presumed guilty until proven innocent and innocent
people are punished instead of the guilty.
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