There Is No Justification for Ratifying Injustice
Zip it Mitch - Spare Us Another Lie
The novelist and social critic Norman Mailer once wrote, “You can be the best in the world and still lose.” Mailer uttered these profound words to lament his defeat in a race for the office of Mayor of New York City. His prodigious ego led him to believe he was the best candidate in the race. Perhaps history will give him the benefit of the doubt and adjudge Mailer the best novelist turned politician in that contest.
The events of 2/13 give renewed meaning to those words of Mailer. For indeed, the House Managers in the second impeachment trial, as in the first impeachment trial of Donald John Trump, a year before, were the best lawyers on the senate floor.
But like Mailer jostling with windmills in the 1960s, the House Floor Managers lost to attorneys who were less gallant, less prepared, and on the wrong side of the facts and the law. Yet, the least gallant and the worst team of lawyers stumbled and bumbled their way to victory. Justice, you say, or just-us?
Day in and day out, pre-COVID 19, juries and jurists render unfair verdicts that have faint resemblance to the truth, justice, and the American way. These trials take place outside the sight of the public. Nevertheless, these trials have civil plaintiffs and criminal defendants leaving courtrooms shaking their heads over the seeming lack of justice dispensed in their cases. Their cries go up to the heavens for relief.
Often this is the poor people reality, even when they come into court with the better-prepared lawyer. The system has a way of settling things that protects the interest of the wealthy and well connected, the rich white-owned insurance company over the indigent Black or Brown plaintiff, the white police officer’s word over that of Black eye-witnesses, or video filmed by Black citizens.
Back in the days when I was an active member of the bar, I prosecuted a medical malpractice case against the only hospital in a middle Georgia county and a local doctor when a poor Black mother raising her three children on a welfare check, lost her fourth child due, we believed to the negligence of both the hospital and the doctor.
