Progressive DA’s Will Help Reform a Corrupt Criminal Justice System

I think it’s impossible to overstate the corruption of the criminal justice system in this country.

The FBI Crime Lab produced bogus results for years. Crime labs in many states (including Massachusetts) falsified evidence that led to convictions of thousands.

Prosecutors face no risk of criminal prosecution for withholding exculpatory evidence and no real risk for suborning perjury from witnesses, including police. Police “testilying” is very common. A tremendous amount of evidence has been found regarding cops planting drugs on the living and guns on the dead.

So when progressive district attorneys such as Rachel Rollins (Boston), Larry Krasner (Philly) and Chesa Boudin (SF) start re-orienting towards justice instead of high conviction rates it is shaking the system to its foundations. Cops who have enjoyed the license to bully and beat out confessions, cops who have benefited from exorbitant amounts of overtime, cops who cover up for their felonious comrades — all are outraged — and express their outrage anonymously in various comments sections.

Here are bottomline considerations to consider:

1. Since 1973, 156 individuals have been completely exonerated from death row — that is, found to be innocent and released — in the U.S. There have been 1,491 executions in the U.S. since 1973. In other words, for every 10 people who have been executed since the death penalty was reinstated in the U.S., one person has been set free. (National Coalition To Abolish the Death Penalty).

2. Mass incarceration feeds a prison-industrial complex that reinforces and exacerbates every inequality in U.S. society. Those who make money and those who work in the system at a higher rate of pay and benefits than they could get elsewhere have a major interest in preserving the status quo.

3. People who care about those victimized by a corrupt CJ system might reconsider voting for a Republican governor. In Massachusetts Charlie Baker has appointed ALL SEVEN sitting justices of the state’s Supreme Court and five of the seven were first nominated as judges by Gov. Mitt Romney or Gov. Paul Cellucci. It’s a Republican court.

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