Justice And The Criminal Court (1977)

I'm a successful criminal for instance knows the odds okay the odds are like twelve thousand to one day that I get convicted or I'll get caught if I commit a crime even kids man 13 14 years old and all the times everybody that said that's in the business of crime knows the eyes both the professionals and the criminals and professional criminals and professionals yeah so I've been arrested some like 800 times you know ridiculous amount of times only been down to Penitentiary one time and I used to talk to him about it and he used to give me the ramp and he explained to me what the odds were he'd get he'd get busted say for instance he was out you know okay twelve thousand one he's not going to get caught committing a crime okay his burger if he did get caught he always had 500 in his pocket and the first thing he would do is he tried to get a quote Street adjustment which is fixing the copper okay as soon as he gets caught if that didn't work and he went down to the station then he shot for an adult station adjustment adult station adjustment is when you turn around you pay some money to the death Sergeant to forget about the beef or something that didn't work and when he went down to court to go to trial and would give his lawyer the money to go to the you know to the victim and pay the victim and tell the victim hey I'm going to get 10 continuances that means 10 days will not work and you got to be down here now you take this 500 and Adam Morgan covered for the damage and we'll forget it was all I got from you was a tire I think the most effective deterrent for the crime is Swift and sheer punishment put it another way I think the most effective deterrence to crime is the trial of a case and a final disposition either finding of guilty or a finding them not guilty within the uh quickest possible time after arrest when I was in the dope business I wouldn't go to Texas I wouldn't go to Texas for nothing in the world because I knew that if I went to Texas and I got caught got cracked in Texas with one joint one reefer okay I'm gonna do four years in Huntsville no doubt about it I mean there's going to be no doubt in the minds of anybody that commits a crime that if they get caught there's not going to be any station adjustment any Street adjustment any Court adjustment I mean I'm gonna have to go to court I'm going to have to stand trial and that's it there is often a criminal case someone who is the victim in the sense that they were stabbed or robbed or murdered or deprived of some property there are also there are those victims that we all know about then there are the other victims in the system that people don't very often think about as victims and those are the accused those are the people who are the people that the system is attempting to penalize in one way or another more often than not by putting them away in the penitentiary or in some jail I call those people victims because more often than not they are because of circumstances quite beyond their control [Music] thank you [Music] I'm afraid of the prison or I'm bound to do my advice afraid you'll forget me while I'm paying for my crime what makes you think that you can judge my guild for innocence I've been on each side of that big wall and there's no difference foreign [Music] flag beard new car in the driveway an engagement ring a gavel we live by symbols observe the Great American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes symbols kind of emotional shorthand for the the things that we feel that we instantly communicate to others respect fear social status and even sometimes hatred over the past few years the judicial branch of our government symbolized by the scaffold has suffered a major loss in public respect and confidence what was designed as the answer demands Eternal pursuit of justice and fair play is is rapidly being consumed by a maze of legal procedures 60-second hearings inconsistent judgments disappointed Witnesses and seemingly endless stream of requests for continuances if nothing else the common man is frustrated and that's a feeling that's also shared it seems by the rest of the Criminal Justice System I got held up a couple of blocks from where I live just after I cash my paycheck uh so far all I got to show for it is about 16 stitches oh yeah and I'm I'm getting to know my lawyer real well I've been down to Criminal Courts Building three times now with a witness and the case still hasn't been tried oh yeah they caught the guy but he hasn't got any money now look what I don't understand is we pay all this uh what do you call it uh compensation for these countries that we bomb after a war but nobody compensates me for for getting robbed or losing all that time at work when the police and the courts aren't doing their job now that guy should go to prison right but I can't afford too much more of this back and forth back and forth I spend more time in court than I do on the street and most of the time they just continue the case or cop a plea sometimes I just don't make the arrest it's not worth it all I want is a trial huh I want a chance to tell my side of the story to a judge but I can't get to see him I'm sitting in here like some common ordinary Criminal Just because I picked a fight with a guy in a bar and I can't get to talk to the judge people expect me to be some kind of Perry Mason what I am is an advocate my responsibility is to make sure my client gets everything he's entitled to under the law now that's his constitutional right and if you're ever in court believe me you're going to want everything you've got coming sometimes I feel like I'm presiding over a traffic jam the police send me people who don't really belong here the defense attorney and the prosecutor look at me as some kind of a negotiable item in a bargaining session at the public the public expects me to protect them by putting away every law breaker in prison for as long as possible everyone complains about continuances but how can I possibly handle over a hundred hearings a day if I don't rely on the lawyer's recommendations we need help more support what we don't need are more people in this court I understand our courts are in a mess people say we need more judges more help in the courts is there any alternative to more judges more help well perhaps there are other things that ought to be explored before we start talking about lots more judges and lots more prosecutors I think first of all we have to take a good hard look at the way the judges we presently have are being employed and how they spend their time I think that if anyone were to analyze the cases that are on the court calls at any given time whether we're talking about the preliminary hearing courts or the trial courts themselves you'll find that a large percentage of those cases are coming up on those calls for the second third fourth fifth sixth time item a recent Illinois Law Enforcement commission study showed that it takes the Cook County criminal courts an average of 286 days and 13.9 continuances to dispose of a felony case it cost the state ten dollars every day the defendant waits in jail [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] thank you The Beat Goes On at best our Criminal Courts represent a fragile constitutional marriage between the protection of the innocent and the punishment of the guilty the question is can this marriage be saved case continued [Music] the defendant who is not guilty and the evidence doesn't prove him guilty shouldn't be required to sit up in the county jail in lieu of bail for 18 months to two years of working his way up to a trial level the defendant who the evidence does prove his guilt and he is proven guilty Beyond A Reasonable Doubt shouldn't be sitting in the county jail he ought to be down in the penitentiary after a trial if the judges would take a stronger hand in administering their caseloads if they held both the prosecutor and defense attorney to tighter schedules to more realistic schedules in terms of setting specific dates for trials we may find we're handling cases much fewer times if you handle an individual file fewer times then clearly that's going to relieve the the burden of the courts item it is estimated that in fully one half of all criminal cases where charges are dropped failure of witness to cooperate is responsible the major reason given is fear of reprisal Angie I've just witnessed a crime all right very harrowing experience more for the person than for me but now I'm scared because if I report that crime and I submit myself to being a witness there's liable to be some retribution right how do I avoid that how do I cope with that well I I hate the word avoid I think that we've come to the point now where you better take an interest and you better be the witness because you know if you don't clear this up if people don't go down and stand up and say look I saw this happen that is the individual that caused this person's problem you know beating them overhead or whatever what's to assure that I'm not going to be injured there is no Assurance it's just the idea that you're going to you're going to do something about it in this idea of letting the other guy do it and let the other guy take the risk isn't uh to me you're not you shouldn't live in the community that's a moral point of view and I respect it but what about my own safety your own safety well for instance one area of Edgewater there where there's a gang that I feel that terrorized the whole area I mean like they take over a beach if they want to and Chase everybody off and people left or they took over blocks these there were people who were afraid to testify and so we guarantee by meeting it you know groups of people hearing about this need that you needed a witness support let's say um and we asked these the people the victims if they would please and the witnesses if they would uh go down to the courts and follow this through courts with the police and with this uh State's Attorney that we should get these cases get this taken care of once and for all the kids need to psychiatric care or whatever or if they have to be put away as a habitual criminal fine but as individuals we got together and we made a force so to speak we've followed we've accompany you we go down to that Court unless that's important I've got some support right okay and we're going you're going to court with me definitely wow and not only me there will be maybe there could be at one time we had about 60 people with you with me I'm afraid of nothing I could a backup of the system leads to um of people having a damn Viewpoint of the criminal justice system because of the slowness with which it operates the Constitution guarantees everyone accused of a crime the right to trial and defense by Council for the poor or Indigent the state appoints a public defender at no cost to the client the middle income or affluent client May hire his own attorney 's fees begin to owe 300 or so and go on from there up into possibly the thousands often it becomes a case of how much Justice can you afford if a person is poor his choices are somewhat Limited especially in the state courts of our city a person who is poor and tells a judge you cannot afford to have a lawyer is going to be appointed a public defender or in some rare circumstances a private lawyer who will be appointed by the court he doesn't have a choice which public defender he'll be appointed maybe he's heard that a particular public defender is particularly competent he doesn't have a choice they ask for that particular person to defend him from his standpoint he feels like he's stuck with someone that has been thrust upon Him someone he didn't choose someone who's now asking him questions to reveal confidences and other information and that someone is paid by the very same people who pay the judge who pay the police who pay the prosecutor from a defendant standpoint that doesn't seem very fair and then if he were to go and he were to watch a private lawyer defend one of say someone else who's also charged with a crime in the same court he would see that private lawyer do things that many public defenders are unable to do and the public defender's office is so understaffed and so under financed and so overburdened with court cases in our in our system if the resources were available then we could really say that Justice is equal and that it doesn't matter if a man has a lot of money or a little money he's going to get a fair trial and that's not the fault of the public defender and that's not the fault of the man or the woman who's accused in the criminal courts that's the fault of a system that we've Let Go by because well I guess basically because none of us know about it and because we don't see it and we don't see the pain and we don't see the agony it just sort of grinds on and it sends people away and puts them in cages and we don't see them so we figure it's not a problem each year the American correctional system handles about two and a half million offenders at the cost of over a billion dollars not all of them are behind Prison Walls based on the offender's capacity to change the judge now has Alternatives I'm Warden Cannon uh my responsibilities here at Stateville have to do with mainly and principally maintaining the public safety at this institution and making it a hopefully better place and more reasonable place for people to serve time and a better place and more reasonable place for people to be employed you can pretty well predict without trying an individual whether or not he's going to go into an Institutional or a non-institutional program after he's found guilty what they do is they screen people by various criteria and if if the screening process determines that here's a guy even if he's found guilty of a crime that's going to go into a non-institutional program they talk to him prior to adjudication and say in exchange for not adjudicating you as a person guilty of a crime will give you an out we'll defer you into a correctional program now we need your consent because you haven't been found guilty of anything but if you're willing to consent to this you'll get a chance to participate in a program that may do you some good and at the same time you'll have the benefit of not having been found guilty for crying diversion at the court level I think is an answer to a lot of our problems in institutions like this in other words people should come here only who really have to have this kind of confinement and uh other people should be dealt with on a community-based correctional uh level in other words there needs to be programs developed in the community to deal with people who don't have problems severe enough they're not dangerous they're not violent they can be worked with effectively in the community that's where they should be worked with rather than send them to a major institution I don't think that all persons who are convicted should be sentenced to the penitentiary there are some people that even though they have been convicted of a crime are good candidates for rehabilitation without being sentenced to the penitentiary are you scaring the public a little bit at that here people uh guilty or accused let us say of serious crimes and now they're being given the option of being these programs are based on the creation of real community-based Correctional programs to put a person out on probation but not treat them at all not deal with them at all not check on them at all is not really a program to say that someone in a program such as that fails is not to say that probation or community-based Corrections fail these programs these pre-trial intervention programs count on real resources that are in the community that are every bit as intensive as institutional programs well the interesting thing about dealing with human behavior is you're never going to be able to Peg down a person's behavior and say what he's going to be doing a month from now or a week from now or tomorrow but if you have people who are qualified and are knowledgeable in the behavioral sciences then they should be able to certainly prognosticate or predict uh Behavior enough to make programs meaningful that are Community Based which you're never going to eliminate the possibility of somebody doing something very wrong in a community-based program my opinion judges aren't qualified to make any decisions hey number one begin with their lawyers they're not behavioralists they don't know anything about the behavioral sciences my entire career both inside the law and outside the law I only knew one judge that had a degree in social work and the other judges man hated his guts I think we should lock people up only if they have in fact been convicted of Syria's crimes against the person or property I think we should limit our efforts to reform them to what is fair in relation to what they've been convicted of I do not think it is rational to think that prisons are going to much make much difference to curing people of crime if I can use probation then I will not sentence to the penitentiary because of my belief that right now for whatever the reasons our penal system in this state as well as in the entire country doesn't do an adequate job of Rehabilitation all our penal systems are now for the most part are doing is warehousing human beings when I came out of the institution I was probably the most dangerous person on the face of the Earth because when I was down the institution when I was down in Stateville and Julian I had three of my teeth kicked out by a guard that laughed at me and dared me to get back up off the ground I was in the hole and we still tend to use that if I take a dog and I put a dog in the basement of my house man for 30 days or 60 days he comes out of that basement insane well the public expects if that's what you're asking me a great deal they think that they can both punish people and cure them by locking them up in prison I very much doubt it I think Prudence exist to punish people uh I think it may be possible within the enforced banishment it is punishment to let people who wish to change a little but I'm not sure about that I'm not sure about that uh the real problem is that people have diverse purposes in locking criminals up in prison and they haven't been very clear about which priorities they want to pursue well you hear that somebody commits a crime basically you should put them away so he's not dangerous anymore well it's certainly not dangerous to the public while he's locked up but the problem is he comes out again no I don't think it's realistic that we could handle perhaps as many people as some people would like to see locked up and it's expensive and we feel we're overcrowded now at 1400 inside the walls and and uh if we received an exceedingly uh a high amount of new committees or whatever it would create large problems for us here [Music] [Applause] none of us really knows when by time and circumstances in fate we might find ourselves or better said someone else might find us in the so-called wrong place at the wrong time charged with a criminal offense and everyone thinks that no that'll never happen to me because I'm innocent until it does happen to someone close to him or her who is indeed innocent what most of us forget is that but by the grace of God there go I but by the grace of God go you or your son or daughter or your husband or your next door neighbor or some really good friend and that's the real importance of our system the importance of keeping this system going according to the Mandate of the Constitution so that never is there a single Choice made in that system which assumes that a man is guilty the importance of keeping alive all our basic fundamental rights some people say we don't need to have those rights he did it so put him away well we have to ask ourselves the question if that speaker were the one who was accused would he say well I don't need those rights I did it so put me away [Music] when we assume that any one of us innocent as we may be can be caught up in this system at any time then we're going to want the system to protect every right we've got we're going to want it to presume us innocent we're going to want it to give us a fair trial we're going to want it to let us have a jury of our peers people from our own Community who can't be influenced by private interests or by judge or prosecutor or police officer or anyone else we're going to want a system that will allow us to be found innocent as in fact we are I'm afraid of judgment love the land afraid of the power that he holds in his hands when I plead my case in court I'll be so penitent and I know that when the judge gives a verdict to the tree me lenient [Music] I'm afraid of the prison or I'm bound to do my time afraid you'll forget me well I'm paying for my crime what makes you think that you can judge my guilt or in all sense I've been on each side of that big wall and there's no difference [Music]