I grew up in the seventies believing that police officers, lawyers, judges and people in general were good, always told the truth as best they could, and would always stand on the side of good when called upon to do so in any circumstance. Many Americans have lived under that same influence of rose colored glasses ideology in regards to jurisprudence in this country. Recently, in the last two decades or so, this has changed and the American criminal justice system has come under attack by the press and the average citizen. Why is this? Are we simply just turning into a nation of cynics, naysayers, paranoid of our very own government and its’ agencies? Or perhaps, for the first time since this country’s birth, we have made available to us the forensic science and other modern technologies that have helped us to open our eyes to the truth set before us—that corruption and incompetence truly plague our justice system at virtually every level? I am going to use the latter as my basis for explaining why I finally decided it was time to take my own rose colored glasses off and look really hard at the whys and hows of the numerous, possibly countless, flawed legal battles and cases th

These are the same and very reasons why our systems’ flaws and failures need to be addressed so that we as a nation can rest assured that our brother, sister or neighbor will not be hauled off to prison for a crime they never committed, without due process, to rot away for years while the rest of us scramble for some sort of remedy for them.

In one very disturbing case a black man, Austin Michael was sentenced to life for murder and served 27 years, in spite of the fact that not only did he not fit the description of the perpetrator, but he even had a time card at work that places him across town at his job at the very time of the killing. His attorney had never even subpoenaed those time card records, nor did he ever investigate the credibility of the supposed eyewitness, who was presented at trial as the average clean cut citizen. In reality, the eyewitness turned out to be a high school dropout and drug dealer. He later died from a drug overdose. Austin Michael was finally exonerated of this horrible crime and released in 2001 from the state of Maryland’s penal system. Here is a section from the Washington Post article dated December 29,2001,(footnote *3) describing what happened to this poor and unfortunate soul. This is enough to make anyone sick. "A Baltimore man who spent 27 years in prison proclaiming his innocence was freed yesterday after his 1974 murder conviction was overturned by a judge who said he had received an unfair trial."

Some attorneys that defend the poor are in private practice and assigned to these indigent cases for a fee set by the county in question. In some counties, assigned council are paid a mere $50.00 to $350.00 flat fee for a case. This doesn’t leave much room for any fancy footwork performed for the defendant. The flat fee structure has caused the incentive to put forth a zealous fight, to be moreso, just a marginal effort put forth by these assigned attorneys.

These are just some more recent findings of suspicious and less than honorable work being performed in state and federal crime labs as well as the numerous subcontracted private labs in America today, which are releasing controversial test results which are being used in court rooms every day.

"In addition, Byrnes found that prosecutors prejudicially linked Austin to an alleged co-conspirator in front of the jury despite the trial judge's commands not to. At the time, the alleged co-conspirator had not been put on trial, and all charges against him were eventually dropped."

Some topics in this essay:
Judge Schwarm, America Fiction, Eric Komitzsky, Sam Sheppard, Sixth Amendment, United Canada, Yes American, Bulls” Spain, OJ Simpson, Dredmund Higgins, justice system, criminal justice, criminal justice system, sam sheppard, district attorneys, dna evidence, federal government, court officers, forensic science, test results, crime committed, rose colored glasses, forensic science dna, grand jury investigation,