The U.S. Justice Department says it can't be bothered to release dozens of legally innocent people they've imprisoned, reports USA Today.
Justice Department officials said it is not their job to notify prisoners that they might be incarcerated for something that they now concede is not a crime. And although they have agreed in court filings that the men are innocent, they said they must still comply with federal laws that put strict limits on when and how people can challenge their convictions in court.
Innocent yet still imprisoned

  • Bob N Johnson

    And a one, a two, a three…

    Brazil, when stars were entertaining June,
    We stood beneath an amber moon
    And softly murmured someday soon…
    We kissed and clung together

    Then – tomorrow was another day
    The morning found us miles away
    With still a million things to say.
    And now, when twilight dims the skies above
    Recalling thrills of our love
    There’s one thing I’m certain of…
    Return, I will, to old Brazil.

  • bzishi

    “It’s been tough,” said Ripley Rand, the U.S. attorney in Greensboro, N.C. “We’ve spent a lot of time talking about issues of fundamental fairness, and what is justice.”

    Sometimes you have to ask yourself what is ethical. If the law requires you to go through a lot of hoops to free an innocent man, then the law is wrong. And if you are a US Attorney and find that an innocent man is imprisoned, then you have a moral duty to have that man freed as soon as possible. Don’t talk about laws and requirements and how fundamental fairness relates to justice. Talk about your moral duty.

    • Marc45

      In this case, I agree but not for moral reasons. Morality is subjective and is used for all sorts of unfairness towards people. One person’s morality is another’s persecution.

      What might be a better reason for the attorney is the constitutionality of the situation and the cost of keeping someone in jail.

      • bzishi

        Not all morality is subjective (which is typically due to a religious definition of morality). Utilitarianism and Kantian ethics are objective moral systems, and specifically Kantian ethics considers the  individual to be the ends rather than the means. Kantian ethics would reject locking up innocent people for the law or “for the greater good” because 1) there could be no universal justice system where any individual could be randomly imprisoned and 2) because these innocent people (and all innocent people by extension) who are imprisoned are a means to an end, rather than the ends themselves.

        Utilitarianism, by contrast, might allow this. Utilitarianists, who follow a flawed system in my opinion, might argue that the law serves a greater good and that there would be some optimal fraction of rightfully imprisoned vs wrongly imprisoned that would cause the greatest public good. If too few criminals are imprisoned or too many innocents are imprisoned, the public good would be hurt. But the criminals and innocents imprisoned are related by the evidence requirements (strict vs. loose). And following the rule of law as strictly as possible would be critical to controlling this fraction and maintaining the public good.

        The moral problem here that faces us is because the US criminal justice system is a system that follows Utilitarianism. The flaws of this system mean that leaving these innocent men locked up is permissible to the adherents, because the Rule of Law is the only thing that can promote the Public Good.

        • Charlie B

           Excellent post, but I have to point out that from a Utilitarian point of view, a system that knowingly punishes the innocent is different from one that accepts a certain number of innocents will be inadvertently punished.  The US criminal system is intended to be the latter, not the former; when the Rule of Law is known by the Public to be corrupted and inequitable it ceases to promote the Public Good because this encourages rebellion and disrespect for the law, which leads to the breakdown of society.  Thus a functioning Utilitarian system will not permit the continued incarceration of known innocents, although it would acknowledge that some innocents may well be falsely judged guilty.

          I myself am more a Categorical Imperative kind of guy.

          • http://marjaerwin.livejournal.com/ Marja Erwin

            Of course, with all the gorram border restrictions, we can’t walk away from Omelas.

          • http://marjaerwin.livejournal.com/ Marja Erwin

            Of course, if they were utilitarian, the politicians would consider the costs of imprisoning anyone, including the disutility to the prisoner, and asks themselves whether the benefits of this or that law outweigh the costs.

            They don’t do that.

            They seem to focus on the idea that if someone does something wrong, someone must be punished. Where something harmless can be considered wrong if it conflicts with early-iron-age ritual purity codes, or if it is associated with the ‘wrong sort’ of people, while something harmful can be protected as long as the ‘right sort’ of people practice it or profit from it.

            Evil #$%^ “penal atonement” @#$% deadly doctrine…

          • Charlie B

             Hmmm, a couple very good points there, Marja.  If you look at the persons in question, they are very clearly not the ‘right sort’ of people – they are petty criminals every one.

            I went to school in Salem, and I’m still trying to walk away.

          • bzishi

            @google-44fb9c17a22832413cb891dda4c302a8:disqus : Utilitarianism will allow imprisoning known innocents if it is evaluated that freeing them will degrade the functioning of the Rule of Law. Utilitarianists might argue that preserving the Rule of Law is of greater benefit to society than violating the rights of the innocent. In the case here with the Justice Department, they acknowledge that there is a process for these innocents to be freed. Thus they don’t have to do anything that might degrade the power of the Rule of Law.

            This is a perfect example of my two biggest beefs with Utilitarianism. First, it doesn’t have any definition of duty except to maintain utility. The Justice Department has brainwashed itself into feeling that justice is utility, and that to maximize utility they need to incarcerate criminals with efficiency. The idea that the Justice Department would try to free innocents is absurd. Second, Utilitarianism is always based on the ability to predict the future with some clarity. Some might argue that it could be summarized by “the ends justify the means”. If your prediction of the future is wrong…Oops!

            @openid-101691:disqus: The biggest benefit of Utilitarianism is that it is easy to implement. But no pure utilitarianist system has ever been implemented. People do it piecewise (and probably unconsciously to the fact that they are implementing a utilitarianist system). The politicians have their limited system, and the Justice Department has its own. Each has a different definition of utility. And in between those definitions, people who otherwise wouldn’t have their rights violated by utilitarianist ethics fall between the cracks.

  • http://twitter.com/lopakatanu BJ Rooney

    It’s not their job to help the innocent get out of jail, but to keep the guilty from going in.

  • Sagodjur

    “Rand, the U.S. attorney in Greensboro, said he is ‘not aware of any procedural mechanism by which they can be afforded relief,’”

    Fuck procedure. Innocence is innocence. If procedure doesn’t allow innocent men to go free, then the procedure is wrong. This is where strict application of the law rather than the spirit of the law is a problem. Bureaucratic process may remove human emotion, but that means it also removes compassion and treating people like human beings.

    • s2redux

      If procedure doesn’t allow innocent men to go free, then the procedure is wrong.

      And blaming the workers will fix this, how? If this is a problem of law, then go after the lawmakers.

      • bzishi

        I don’t see any US Attorneys raising a commotion. If a person’s rights are being severely violated, any able bodied person has a moral duty to stop that violation to the best of their ability. Passing the buck is not an option. While it may not be possible to fix the system by yourself, these US Attorneys should be making a commotion even if it costs them their jobs. They need to petition the President and Congress. If all else fails they need to go to the media.

        I’d simplify it by saying that if the way you are doing your job causes you to lose sleep due to guilt, then you are doing it wrong.

  • James Churchill

    Land of the Free, eh?

  • http://evilbobdayjob.blogspot.com/ Deidzoeb

    “No one else could ever be admitted here, since this gate was made only for you. I am now going to shut it.”

  • http://profiles.google.com/stephen.schenck Stephen Schenck

    Methinks the Justice Department needs a refresher on the definition of “justice”. 

    • Phil Fot

       They should just change the name to “The Legal Department,” since they aren’t really interested in Justice. Fucking lawyers.

  • EH

    Maybe they can get Eric Schneiderman on the case. He’s a smart guy and I’m pretty sure he has a bunch of free time these days.

  • Jaye Sunsurn

    The cost alone to keep people jailed must be incentive enough to let these people go… oh wait they privatized the prisons in a lot of places… they won’t want their workforce to get a real job now do they?

  • jgs

    Per the story it’s much worse than Justice just not notifying the prisoners: “the Justice Department … has argued in court that they should not be released.” I didn’t see that elucidated in the rest of the story, unfortunately (I could have missed it, I was skimming pretty viciously).

    Also, one of the prisoners is being held in Farmville. Doesn’t that qualify as cruel and unusual punishment?

    • Charlie B

       Forcing anyone to use Facebook is clearly cruel, but perhaps not unusual.

  • Rev. Benjamin

    This is probably a silly question, but couldn’t/shouldn’t a wrongful imprisonment suit be viable in this situation?

    • EH

      Scalia has said, though I’m not sure SCOTUS has held, that there’s nothing to do about convictions of innocent people. In other words, if you happen to be convicted, innocent or not, that’s reason enough for your presence in the prison system.

      • jgs

        Ah yes, the famous Scalia Doctrine of “vaffanculo”. 

        See also http://www.flickr.com/photos/12333472@N04/3490986159/

  • http://profiles.google.com/marc.k.mielke Marc Mielke

    I think the procedural/bureaucratic problem is that if innocent prisoners were able to apply for release at any time, that system would be abused by practically everyone in the joint, clogging things up so that NOBODY GETS OUT EVER. 

    Yes, that really sucks and if an officer of the court discovers a convicted person’s innocence (because someone else did it, new evidence shows he couldn’t have done it, etc) there should be a mechanism to get the dude out free. 

    • Sagodjur

       I think the problem here is that they don’t consider it “new evidence” when a court determines that people convicted under these circumstances are innocent. It seems like semantic bullshit to me. It’s a new revelation, regardless of whether you consider it “evidence,” and they should thus be allowed to appeal immediately upon such a revelation. The fact that this kind of situation isn’t already built into the appeals process indicates that our “justice” system is already inherently flawed in its approach.

  • https://twitter.com/Thejackthompson Jack Thompson

    The government can’t help, but can normal people? Criminal records are public – can’t the people convicted of the crimes be identified and informed? 

    • EH

      Yes, if you can find them in the massive prison population the US has given itself.

  • Daemonworks

    Sounds like an open-and-shut case of wrongful imprisonment to me…

    • Charlie B

      The government is immune to suit, unless it decides to allow such suit.

  • elix

    Really? This just sickens me.
    Even though they know they’re innocent?
    Very stupid. I can’t believe this.
    Or maybe they want to keep them there.
    Let them beef up the private prison market.
    That’s sickening.