Hayley Masi May 8, 2013
Law Lipman E1
Justice Delayed is Justice Denied The term “Justice delayed is justice denied,” was written by William Ewart Gladstone (1809-1898). Gladstone was one of the greatest English politicians and was also former British Prime Minister. It has several possible origins, one of which is the Magna Carta, clause 40 which states, “To no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse or delay, right or justice.” A prompt trial is guaranteed by the sixth amendment of the United States Constitution. A defendant who is held in jail for a lengthy period of time prior to his day in court could ultimately be found not guilty and then will have been in a sense wrongfully imprisoned. Trials that are pushed back for years may mean that witnesses may be lost or their memories may fade and a guilty man could walk. Victims of crimes and their families must prolong an agonizing ordeal awaiting their day in court. Parties on both sides of the law may be adversely affected by a justice system that is slow and inefficient. In the New York Times, an article written showed that in the Bronx there were more people waiting for their trial then in the rest of the city combined. This borough “was responsible for more than half of New York City’s criminal cases that were over two years old, and for two-thirds of the defendants waiting for their trials in jail for more than five years.” Of the cases eventually tried in the Bronx, less than half of the verdicts come out guilty. One must then consider if this fifty percent conviction rate means that criminals are escaping justice or we are unjustly accusing people at an alarmingly high rate. A case that has been delayed for years may be harder to try as evidence could be lost, witnesses’ memories may not be so sharp and justice could be denied. The victim of a violent crime as well as their families may have sufficient time to heal both visible and internal wounds only to then have to relive the trauma years later when the actual trial is held. Delays in the court system leads to overcrowding in our jails which lead to policies of early release of prisoners as well as out-of court settlements of cases by lawyers that may allow some guilty defendants to avoid an appropriate sentence. When America first got its independence from Great Britain in 1783, our founding fathers did not know too much about running a country. One thing they did know is they did not want to become a monarchy like Britain and the only way to do that was to come up with a series of natural laws to protect the American citizens. It took many tries and drafts to finally come up with the Constitution, which to this day is still evolving as it is a living document. The Constitution includes a series of laws that gives citizens the right to say what they want, be what they want, and be treated fairly in the judicial system. In our justice system, a defendant is innocent until proven guilty. The sixth Amendment states, “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed.” When justice is delayed innocent defendants may spend years behind bars wrongly accused which could have a devastating effect on their lives, financially, emotionally and psychologically. The search for the actual guilty parties likely ended with the initial arrest as well and thus justice is averted with no closure for a victim. Delays in the justice system both civil and criminal come from all sides. Prosecutors and public defenders may be overwhelmed by their caseloads, attorneys may use stall tactics and the court system is backed up with trials at times due to frivolous lawsuits along with criminal cases. As stated previously one solution to this problem of overcrowding of our jails partly due to the inefficiency justice system is early release programs. This has included violent criminals and there have been multiple instances where this has resulted in further mayhem. The concept of early release unfortunately at times averts the principle of “let the punishment fit the crime” and thus recidivism is rampant. In criminal law, Blackstone's formulation (also known as Blackstone's ratio or the Blackstone ratio) is the principle that: "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer," as expressed by the English jurist William Blackstone in his seminal work, Commentaries on the Laws of England, published in the 1760s. Sending an innocent person to jail can potentially ruin their lives. Victims of violent crimes deserve to see their attacker justly punished; and in civil cases plaintiffs deserve to get just compensation in a timely matter without hefty lawyer fees. A company or person wrongly sued in a civil matter should as well be able to promptly vindicate themselves to avoid undue personal, financial and professional harm. When “the wheels of justice grind to a halt” all involved parties and society itself suffer. In some countries justice is swift and the priniciple of an eye for any eye prevails which may lead to public hanging or the cutting off of a hand of a thief. In America our complex systems of law designed to protect the innocent has led to a overtaxed system which although has failed in its promise to be swift hopefully tries to uphold its basic tenets of justice for all.