I Know Where I'll Be Tonight

Thomas Doswell spent 19 years in prison for rape. He was released yesterday, based upon a DNA test which indicated it was someone else's semen found in the victim all those years ago. So, he didn't do it (unless he's found a way to ejaculate someone else's semen), and finally gets to go home for the first time in nearly two decades. Now Doswell had the chance to go home early, they call it parole, but was denied due to his intractable refusal to admit to and take responsibility for his crime. Yikes. What's even more yikes-worthy is the fact that prosecutors opposed the DNA test which cleared Doswell and freed up another prison bed. Now I know the arguments, both legal and logistical, for and against DNA testing in older cases such as this. Prosecutors are concerned, correctly so, that an unending stream of justly convicted felons will clog the courts with spurious requests for testing which they know will only bog down the system and piss off everyone concerned (yeah, lots of felons, it turns out, are real bastards). Then there's the argument that for every Doswell who is granted a test, there will be hundreds, if not-shudder-thousands who do not, and suddenly our system is no longer fair (relative term, but based on that whole "cruel and unusual" part of the Bill of Rights everyone is entitled to the usual treatment; therefore if we usually treat people like shit it isn't fair for some to not be subjected to the same shitty treatment). And of course, these tests are expensive.

Keeping those arguments in mind, I carefully choose my words in response: bollocks. If we need to hire more judges, more D.A.'s, bailiffs and court reporters to handle the increased load of cases, so be it. Raise taxes, I say, at the federal level if need be, and provide for these tests across the nation. The alternative is unthinkable, or at least should be. Are we a nation that would rather sit on our collective hands than roll up our sleeves and sort out the problems of the past? Wouldn't it be wonderful to be able to say definitively that we have done ALL WE POSSIBLY CAN to ensure that no innocent men and women are rotting in our prisons or, God forbid, being put to death unjustly by the state? Perhaps that is a minority opinion. After all, I'm a registered Democrat, so I get upset when my taxes go down. I hope it is ignorance, and not greed or malice that has made the public so slow to demand from the state the full measure of justice called for in our Constitution.

Lastly, a word on forgiveness, that bastard neighbor of justice that Jesus was fond of spouting off about. It seems that Mr. Doswell does not hold anger, at least publicly, toward those responsible for his 19 years. He spent the time earning an Associates Degree, learning Spanish and seven different instruments. It seems that our penal system can rehabilitate... so long as we're rehabilitating a law-abiding citizen.

That's all. Goodnight.