Environmental Justice Is Just One of Many Different Maladies

I try to speak with my friend whom I quoted here on energy policy at least once a month, to try my best to keep up with his incredible insights about the world of the 21st Century.  He’s aware of my passion for environmental and energy issues, and he understands that my field of expertise is limited to that domain.  My friend agrees that our dwindling natural resources and the demise of the environment should rank high on the list of society’s difficulties, though, he argues, not necessarily at the top.

I usually ask him to summarize the latest goings on in the other types of injustice that concern him most, and occasionally he’ll tell me about the lack of basic fairness and reason in our criminal justice system.

Coincidentally, I just came across this story in The New Yorker, about a young man recently released from Riker’s Island in New York City, where he was locked away for more than three years without a trial, depriving him of his high school social and educational experience.  On several occasions, the prosecution offered him a short sentence if he admitted guilt, but the boy, unwilling to confess to a crime he didn’t commit, held fast.  The prosecution eventually dropped the case when it became clear that it had no real evidence, and the boy was finally freed after serving more than 1000 days.

Obviously, the young man is happy to have been released, but the experience has rendered him a mental and emotion wreck; after a failed attempt at suicide, he’s having difficulty getting on with his life.

On his behalf, his attorney has filed a “malicious prosecution” lawsuit against the city, the N.Y.P.D., the Bronx District Attorney, and the Department of Correction, asking for $20 million.  If I were hearing the case, I’d make it $200 million, put $20 million in a trust fund for the kid, and order that the remaining $180 million be spent to finance a task force to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again in the United States.

I’m sure that his lawyer has chosen well with his decision to pursue “malicious prosecution,” though the concepts of criminal civil rights violations and denial of his 5th Amendment right to a speedy trial seem more obvious to me.

In any case, I’ll hope to see criminal charges brought against the D.A.  Maybe they can send him to Riker’s Island for a few years, after his trial, of course.

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Here’s one last post on criminal justice–then it’s back to renewable energy–I promise.