"Judge Imprisoned for Life after Subway Stabbing!"
Who is really responsible for that horrific stabbing we saw? The title of this post says it all.
Let's say that there's a policeman who takes a bribe in order to let a criminal go rather than processing him or her. If he is caught doing that, he should be fired. Well, maybe he should be charged for the crime, which I believe is the case.
But what if a policeman is friends with some bad actors in a community, and he routinely lets them slide on crimes that they commit in that community. Isn't that the same thing without the transfer of money? Should he be fired? Should he be charged for the crime?
Hopefully there's no debate required on the scenarios that I presented above. Now let's take it a step further. What if, instead of a policeman, we have a judge who has a record of light sentences or no sentences being given to criminals. The result is the same, right? Instead of releasing the criminal at the time when he should have been convicted and jailed, the criminal is released from their the consequences that he earned at a slightly later stage of the process.
When police do it, I believe they are suspended and investigated on their first offense, fired at the time of subsequent offenses, and it's very rare for them to be jailed. Why is that?
Judges, on the other hand, are not held accountable for their decisions due to bribe or sociological beliefs. Whatever the motivator, if they are causing harm to society, they should be held accountable for crimes committed by the people they release. Well, let's say they get three freebies, then they can start to think about going to jail before they give an extremely light sentence.
"Well, a judge cannot possibly know that criminal is going to offend again." You say. That is true! The policeman who feels sorry for criminal and lets him slide or the judge who gives the lenient sentence for the same reason cannot possibly know they are going to reoffend. If it happens once a year, that would be understandable. But, is anyone checking if there's a pattern behind the motivations and actions of judges? I believe a policeman who routinely lets certain kinds of people go would be suspended, and eventually fired. Judges do not seem to have that sort of scrutiny applied to them. They're given robes and respect in their positions and we're just supposed to trust them.
There is something that keeps coming to mind. The woman from Ukraine was heartlessly stabbed on a subway train would still be alive if the judge who released her killer had not done so. Monster that did that was released back into society something like 14 times. I'm pretty sure it wasn't the same judge that released him that many times, but it might have been the same "kind" of judge let him go in the other 13 cases.
I think we should look into judges that are part of the chain of events and lenient sentences or no sentences that were behind that chain. I know the judges must be impeached if they are guilty of any wrongdoing, but firing someone who causes such grave consequences, the kind everyone saw ad nauseam, upon that innocent woman, is not enough of a punishment for that judge and the others in the chain of releases. That woman who bled out on the train thought she would have a safe life when she finally got out of the war torn region in the Ukraine.
As I sit here, I'm thinking that there should be someone who's watching the judges. There is an organization called "Judicial Watch" and their name says it all, but are they doing that? I do not know anyone from Judicial Watch and I'm not picking on them. I have not followed their work at all. I just bring it up because I have heard the name. It came to mind when I was thinking about this topic. Whoever Judicial Watch is, they might want to think about watching the judges and making a list of who's "known" for travesties of justice. It would fit their name.
Somebody should also be thinking about the idea that criminals are simply fired when they're caught. That seems to be the fear inducing "or else" that many in high postition have to ponder. If they are lucky, theywill be asked to resign after causing great harm to the public. Companies that simply pay a fine, however great, after causing a lot of injustice in the world should somehow be held to account as well. That may be a topic for a future post.
When was the last time the police caught you speeding and they simply asked you to resign and get into a different car? That'll teach you to do that again!
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