Could We Maybe Not Lock People Up For 10 Years Without A Trial?

Because that definitely seems like it's a crime.

As a nation, we are incredibly casual about incarceration. Sure — the Fifth and 14th Amendments to the Constitution say that people must be found "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" but in reality it's really more "Well, if they did do it ... better safe than sorry!" The Sixth Amendment says people are entitled to a lawyer and to a speedy trial, but that doesn't always work out so well either — especially the speedy trial part.

Maurice Jimmerson has been in jail ever since he was arrested in Dougherty County, Georgia, along with four other men, for a double murder. That's not so unusual. What is unusual, or what should be, is the fact that he was arrested in 2013 and has been there for 10 goddamned years, throughout which he has maintained his innocence. In that time, two of the men he was arrested with have actually been acquitted .

Via Atlanta News First:  

According to Dougherty County District Attorney Gregory Edwards , there are multiple reasons for delays in Jimmerson’s case, including the pandemic and a 2021 flood at the courthouse that temporarily paused trials.

The district attorney also blames the holdup on the original judge involved in the case, who allowed each defendant to be tried separately, instead of all at once.

While awaiting trial, Jimmerson, now 32, briefly served time in a state prison for an unrelated offense, but Edwards said his trial could have moved forward during that time.

“Jimmerson’s case, it’s a rare situation,” Edwards said. “We want to get to trial eventually.” He said the current delay is directly linked to Jimmerson not having an attorney to represent him for months.

Oh, eventually. That's nice. Why don't you let the man the hell out of jail while everyone gets around to that? Would that not be possible?

This is literally something that we understand is a crime when it's not the justice system doing it. If some creep kidnapped a white woman and held her in his basement for 10 years, we would all understand that he committed a crime. We would all be horrified that someone could do that to another human being. We would be devastated that someone lost so many years of their life. Getting them out of there would be considered an emergency .

If Jimmerson turns out to be innocent (which he probably is), is what the state of Georgia did to him really all that different, in terms of how he experienced it?

The state of Georgia stole 10 years of this man's life like it was nothing . They are still stealing it like it is nothing, like it is not a big deal at all to take someone's freedom or to take years of their life away. But it is an incredibly big deal, and we must start treating it like one.

It seems notable that all of the issues cited by Gregory are things that occurred only during the last three years. What was the excuse before then, when he had been incarcerated for seven years without getting a trial? Because seven years sure is a lot of someone's life to waste if you do not know for a fact that they actually committed a crime.

People are all het up about crime right now, right? Well, why should anyone give a flying shit about the law when this is how the United States justice system treats people? When this is how little they care about constitutional rights that aren't about getting to wave a damn AR-15 around in a preschool? When this is how little they value people's lives? Why should people be real careful to stay on the straight and narrow when they know they could very well end up in prison for years or even on death row whether they actually commit a crime or not?

If the United States justice system doesn't want to follow its own laws and standards, how can we expect anyone else to do so?

I am not just saying this because I am a bleeding heart liberal or even because I tend to err on the side of prison abolition, but rather because I have a modicum of sense. If you want people to be law-abiding citizens, if you want peace, then you cannot make them hopeless. You cannot make the law or the punishments entirely arbitrary. People have to have a reasonable belief that the police will not kill them for doing nothing. They have to have a reasonable belief that they will not end up in prison for years without a trial. They have to have a reasonable belief that they will not end up in prison or on death row for a crime they did not commit.

If people have a constitutional right to a speedy trial, then there needs to be a legal limit to how long they can be incarcerated without actually having been found guilty of something. It doesn't get to just be "We'll get around to it when we get around to it." It has to be "Oh, too bad for you, you didn't get around to prosecuting this guy, guess you have to let him go now." Then, perhaps, people working in the justice system will be just a little bit more aware of these things and we won't have to worry that people like Maurice Jimmerson are sitting in jail for 10 years without getting a trial.

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