Law, Order and Injustice

The criminal justice system is charged with protecting society from those who pose a threat to the public order. Too often, unfortunately, those in charge forget that basic purpose, and the result is anything but just.

The local case of Bei Bei Shai is a horrifying example.

The facts are simple: Bei Bei, a Chinese immigrant, was a pregnant woman with no criminal history. She found herself abandoned and shamed by the father of their expected child. Desperate, she attempted to commit suicide; she left a letter for the man who had deserted her, ate rat poison, and waited to die.  Friends found her, and got her to a hospital where she received medical treatment; doctors believed that the baby would survive if she had caesarean surgery, but the newborn died in her arms, sending her into yet another prolonged depressive episode.

If this wasn’t tragic enough, the Marion County prosecutor charged Bei Bei with murder and attempted feticide. She spent 435 days in the Marion County Jail until her lawyers were able to get her released to home detention pending her murder trial.

The case has received world-wide publicity; most of the details can be found in this recent article from the Guardian.

Bei Bei’s legal team, headed up by well-known criminal lawyer Linda Pence, has been unable to persuade Terry Curry, the Marion County Prosecutor, to drop the murder charge. He insists that the suicide note–which said something to the effect that “I am killing myself and our baby”–shows Bei Bei’s criminal intent to murder her unborn child, and he is insistent that she be prosecuted for that murder.

The policy consequences of criminalizing women’s behavior during pregnancy are obvious. Can the State charge a woman with reckless endangerment if she smokes while expecting? If she drinks? Where do we draw the line?

Those issues have been raised by the 80+ women’s rights groups that have filed amicus briefs in this case. They are important issues, and deserve attention, but I have an even more basic question: How does prosecuting a distraught young woman who tried to kill herself advance public safety? How can the prosecutor defend the use of tax dollars–and capital cases are very expensive–to try a young woman who poses no threat to society?

How does this prosecution serve the purposes of justice?

Bei Bei’s lawyers have done a great deal of unpaid work, but they will need funds to adequately defend her against these charges. They are scrambling to raise those funds, and people wishing to contribute to Bei Bei’s defense should send checks, payable to Shuai Defense Fund,   to 135 N. Penn. St., #1600, Indpls in. 46204.

Meanwhile, if you see Terry Curry, you might ask him what in the world he’s thinking.

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Candidates and Their Beliefs

A friend asked me yesterday whether I thought a candidate’s religion was politically relevant–whether that religion should be included in the mix of qualifying or disqualifying characteristics we all consider when casting our votes.

My answer: it depends.

I think a candidate’s beliefs are always relevant. That is not the same thing as saying his/her religion is necessarily relevant. The issue is what a person wishing to hold a secular office really believes, what worldview really motivates him. The religion of a candidate only becomes relevant when the individual believes so firmly in the doctrines and culture of his religion that he can be expected to take public action based upon those doctrines.

This, of course, presents us with a bit of a paradox–not to mention an incentive to hypocrisy.

It’s a truism of political life that candidates must be seen to be religious, and religious in conventional ways. So candidates for political office–at least, Christian ones–routinely highlight their churchgoing ways.  It’s a bit dicier for members of minority religions, and admitted atheists are just out of luck. Unlike Europeans, Americans are demonstrably leery of candidates who do not claim a religious affiliation.

But we are also leery of those who seem too invested in their theologies, especially–but not exclusively–minority theologies.

When John F. Kennedy made his famous speech reaffirming the American doctrine of separation of church and state, he was really reassuring voters that his Catholicism was tempered and attenuated, and that any conflict between the Constitution and his religion would be resolved in favor of the Constitution.

Religious affiliation is only fair game in politics when we have reason to suspect that a candidate’s religious beliefs will be a primary motivator should that candidate win office–that, unlike JFK, he will resolve conflicts between the constitution and his theology in favor of the latter, or that his policy decisions will be dictated by that theology rather than by appropriate secular considerations.

In other words, if a candidate is likely to make public decisions on the basis of his religious beliefs, the content of those beliefs becomes relevant.

Which brings us, I suppose, to Mike Pence and Mitt Romney, both of whom appear to be deeply invested in their respective religions, and both of whom can be expected to govern in accordance with the tenets of those religions as they understand them. Indeed, Romney’s own “JFK speech” actually rejected Kennedy’s strong endorsement of separation of church and state, leaving little doubt that his Mormonism would influence his conduct in office. Pence, of course, is a “Christian Nation” religious extremist who has shown virtually no interest in the nitty-gritty of secular government. For both of these candidates, religious belief appears integral to their identities and highly likely to influence their behaviors in office. If that’s true, then voters are justified in examining those beliefs.

Bottom line: If a political candidate’s theology is likely to trump other motivations–or the Constitution–the contents of that theology are relevant.

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Institutionalizing the ‘Macaca moment’

You’d have to be hiding under a rock not to notice the multiple ways in which the Internet has changed politics. Back when I first became politically active, I used to write direct mail pieces for candidates; that was a time when you could tailor one message for moms, one for firefighters, etc. Candidates who weren’t too scrupulous could and did use direct mail to take positions that were–shall we say– inconsistent with each other. Candidates could also make speeches to certain audiences that they wouldn’t necessarily want broadcast more widely.

The Internet has made that sort of micro-targeting virtually impossible.

The most-cited example: When George Allen was running for Senate from Virginia (yes, he’s doing that again), he stopped mid-speech to point out a young man filming the talk for his opponent. The volunteer was an American of Indian ancestry, and Allen referred to him as ‘macaca’–a term later determined to be a racist epithet in the country Allen’s mother had come from. The young volunteer uploaded the film to You Tube, and the rest, as they say, is history: the clip went viral, prompting reporters to take a closer look at Allen’s other racially-charged behaviors, Allen lost an election in which he had been heavily favored, and “macaca moment” became part of our political vocabulary.

Just as television brought the Viet Nam war into American living rooms, and arguably sparked the anti-war movement, You Tube and similar technologies give an immediacy and impact to events we might otherwise shrug off or ignore.

Now, You Tube has decided to play a more intentional role in world affairs. It has just announced a Human Rights channel. As the announcement put it:

In the case of human rights, video plays a particularly important role in illuminating what occurs when governments and individuals in power abuse their positions. We’ve seen this play out on a global stage during the Arab Spring, for example: during the height of the activity, 100,000 videos were uploaded from Egypt, a 70% increase on the preceding three months. And we’ve seen it play out in specific, local cases with issues like police brutality, discrimination, elder abuse, gender-based violence, socio-economic justice, access to basic resources, and bullying.

This is going to get interesting.

Hastening Mortality

Today is Memorial Day.

Usually, I don’t spend as much time as I should pondering the sacrifices of the men and women we are memorializing; like most Americans, I welcome a three-day weekend and perhaps, as this year, a cookout with my children and grandchildren. This Memorial Day, however, a death in my own family has me contemplating not just our inevitable mortality, but the numerous human behaviors that hasten the inevitable.

Today, of course, the national focus is on war, and the loss of young men and women in the very primes of their lives. As a parent, I can’t begin to imagine the pain of losing a child, especially in war. Wondering if he suffered at the end, wondering what sort of life she might have lived had she survived. As a member of society, I can only wonder what sorts of contributions to the common good we’ve gone without–what budding artist or inventor or entrepreneur was lost to us through combat.

Wars are not all avoidable; there are just wars. But those unavoidable conflicts are few and far between. The wars of choice, the wars begun by small men with big delusions, by impatient men unwilling to engage in diplomatic problem-solving, have cost so many precious lives that didn’t need to be lost.

It isn’t only through war that we hasten our own demise, of course.  We humans participate in a veritable shmorgasbord of self-destructive behaviors.

The cousin who died yesterday was a bright, delightful, witty woman. (I still remember one conversation about an elderly aunt and uncle who were divorcing after some 50 years of marriage. When I wondered “why now?” she shot back “They were waiting for the children to die.”) Everyone loved Ann–she was classy and warm and outgoing. But even though she knew better, she smoked. Like a chimney. Eventually, she developed lung cancer that metastasized to her brain. It isn’t a pleasant way to go.

So many of us are like my cousin; we can’t seem to break behaviors we know are bad for us. We smoke, we overeat, we drink to excess, we drink and drive….We start wars. We get really good at rationalizing self-destructive, often suicidal behaviors.

On this Memorial Day, I’m wondering what it is about the human condition that makes so many of us act in ways that hasten the inevitable–and what, if anything, we can do about it.

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Deconstructing The Bully Pulpit

In the aftermath of President Obama’s affirmation of same-sex marriage,  a fascinating poll by PPP showed a truly dramatic shift of opinion in the African-American community in favor of such unions.

Now, polling is hardly an exact science (as a colleague of mine who teaches survey research is fond of saying, really sound polling costs a lot more money that political partisans are willing to spend), and this poll may prove to be an anomaly. While I have no evidence to back this up, however, my hunch is that the President’s use of the “bully pulpit” did make a difference. Indeed, control of that pulpit has long been thought to be one of the levers of power available to the nation’s leaders.

The interesting question is: why? Why should the opinion of even a powerful politician operate to change citizens’ positions on highly-charged issues?

I can think of two possible theories, although I’m sure there are more. The first is that–despite the heated rhetoric that seems to envelop those of us who follow public opinion–a significant number of Americans “tune out” such conversations. They live their lives without paying very much attention to governmental or political affairs, and (unbelievable as it may seem to us political junkies) hold superficial positions in which they really aren’t particularly invested. When a public figure or celebrity they admire takes a position contrary to one they’ve lightly held, such people are willing to reconsider.

The other theory is that a Presidential use of the bully pulpit operates as permission to accept cultural change. The stereotype has been that homophobia is more deeply rooted in the African-American community, where it has been reinforced by much of the black church. Whatever the validity of that stereotype, the black community has not been insulated from the significant changes in public opinion about homosexuality. Over the past decade at least, Civil Rights organizations and African-American political leaders have made common cause with the GLBT community, chipping away at what consensus may have existed. When the (black) President announced his support for same-sex marriage, it was experienced as permission to affirm a cultural shift that was already well underway.

As I say, these are theories; I have no data to confirm or reject them. But the consequences of President Obama’s statement should remind all of us that the bully pulpit is not simply a fiction of the political imagination. Used judiciously, that pulpit can educate, admonish and move the country forward.

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