HIDDEN AGENDAS

Lately, a lot has been written on how many people in this country are serving time in prison for possessing small amounts of drugs and how many people have been released from death rows because serious post-trial questions arose about their conviction of capital murder. It should be noted that those putting forth these positions do so with misleading information because they have hidden agendas.

It is true that the prisons are full of inmates who were convicted for possession of illicit drugs. But, these people were not arrested for possessing three or four joints of marijuana or a couple of crack cocaine rocks. They were arrested for selling drugs or apprehended with a quantity of drugs large enough to constitute possession with intent to manufacture, distribute or sell. Because of plea bargaining, the original charges we reduced to possession.

The death penalty was reinstated 30 years ago. Since then, 123 people have been released from death rows because of prosecutorial misconduct, an inadequate defense, or DNA testing results. Of those released, 14 were cleared by DNA testing. Most of the other 109 were released because they received an inadequate defense. Are those who received an inadequate defense innocent of a capital offense? Possibly a few, but most of them killed someone in cold blood.

Unfortunately, it is a fact that most defendants without the means to hire an attorney, do not receive an adequate defense. Their court appointed attorneys, the jetsam and flotsam of the legal profession, lack the competence and/or resources of attorneys hired by those who can afford them.

Attorneys who depend on court appointments for their livelyhood are more interested in securing as many appointments as possible than in providing their clients with a proper time-consuming defense. Justice demands that the best defense possible is available to every person charged with a crime. That calls for abolishing the court appointed attorney system and replacing it with a well staffed and funded public defender's office.

What about those hidden agendas? Those who say the prisons are full of people convicted of possessing small amounts of drugs want to see the possession of drugs, especially marijuana, decriminalized. Those who want to cast doubt on the guilt of death row inmates want to see the death penalty abolished. They deliberately try to mislead us into believing that the prisons are full of simple pot smokers, and that putting an innocent person to death is not a remote possibility.