Today’s POV blog

Should state and federal officials be given the freedom to pursue dangerous criminals without disregard for public rights such as privacy?

In 1949, the International News Service wanted to publish an article about the ‘toughest guys‘ that the FBI would like to catch. The article was so popular that the FBI officially released the list to aid in the capture of these fugitives. Today, the FBI’s most-wanted list includes the likes of Usama Bin Laden.

These criminals have often committed multiple heinous crimes, extortion, bank robberies, money laundering, drug importing, and murder. However, these criminals who are US citizens share the same rights as every other citizen of the US. Should these rights be forfeited for those the FBI deems most wanted?

It may be a slippery slope. Select fugitives losing their rights has the potential of evolving into criminals with lesser offenses losing their rights. On one hand, we have the overwhelming need for public safety and on the other, personal privacy.

A sterling example of this dichotomy is the Patriot Act. In response to our safety concerns after 9/11, the Patriot Act was passed to allow officials to use any means to provide surveillance, detain, arrest, and question people who are thought to be, or might hold information leading to, terrorists. This act has led to many people being locked away and being interrogated in Guantanamo Bay without the basic rights that you or I believe we are guaranteed. Some of the people detained are American citizens, whose rights were forfeited under the application of the Patriot Act.

Are we on the right path? Are our personal-privacy rights of less importance than the need to protect the population?

Benjamin Franklin said, “…it is better 100 guilty persons should escape than that one innocent person should suffer….” This is the premise of our free society, jury of our peers, and innocent until proven guilty, but far too often the innocent are anything but free.

While release of the innocent is not new,  the advances in DNA are making them far more frequent.

• February 2002: Michael Austin was released after spending 27 years for a murder conviction.
• December 2006: Robert Wilson was freed after spending more than nine years of a 30-year sentence in state prison for attempted murder.
• April 2007: Anthony Capozzi was released from prison after serving 22 years for a rape he did not commit.
• March 2008: Willie Green was released from prison after serving 25 years for a killing he did not commit.
• April 2008: Alton Logan was released after serving 26 years in prison for murder before he was released based on new evidence of his innocence.
• March 2009: Sean Hodges is released after 27 years in jail for killing a barmaid.
• August 2009: Ernest Sonnier was released after spending 23 years in prison for a kidnapping he says he didn’t commit.

What’s become just as common place is the restitution paid to these unjustly jailed. In Texas this week, USA Today reported that Thomas McGowan’s imprisonment is going to cost the state of Texas a whopping $1.8 million.

Admirably, Texas leads the union in freeing those whom have been wrongly convicted, but it comes at a hefty price tag. As a standard in that state, exonerees will receive $80,000 for each year they spent behind bars.

While some states, such as Texas, have automatic restitution, others simply pave the way for civil lawsuits.

Peter Rose who served nearly nine years for a rape he didn’t commit was awarded $328,200; that’s $100 for each day that he spent in prison.

In Lee’s Summit, MO, Ted White, Jr., has filed a $100 million lawsuit against a police detective and his ex-wife (who is now married to the detective) for the wrongful child-molestation conviction nearly ten years ago.

In Chicago a federal jury awarded Juan Johnson $21 million for spending 11-1/2 years of a 30 year sentence when he was framed by a Chicago detective, Reynaldo Guevara, for the murder of Ricardo Fernandez.

I am certain that I would not be willing to spend 20 years in prison just for the payout, but awards of this size can go a long way toward reintegrating a person into society. In a poll at Today’s POV, only 6.45% of voters thought that persons in prison were being rehabilitated — what does that mean to those who are innocent?