I’m almost done watching Making of A Murderer. I don’t know how it ends yet, but it’s not much of a spoiler to say that it opens with a story about a guy, Steven Avery, who was wrongly accused of rape and served eighteen years for it.
The evidence was only a shade more substantial than non-existent, but even his appeals and hearings for probation yielded nothing. Everyone thought he did it, so he lost eighteen years.
Later in the show there’s question of police planting evidence for a different case.
I went to court as a spectator some months ago. I was there for just half of the day in the middle of the case, so my knowledge of the case was quite poor. But from that glimpse it appeared to me that he was guilty of robbery. The police found the evidence on him– case closed.
Later I spoke with the defense attorney and asked her about it. They planted the evidence, she said. I balked and said that surely that wasn’t true. Things like that happen in shows like The Shield, not in real life. She was equally surprised that I believed that.
It happens all the time, she said.
A cop is sure someone is guilty, but isn’t sure that the evidence supports it. So he creates a bit of evidence or shifts things around or exaggerates, and then the guilty guy goes to jail. Great strategy if they guy is actually guilty, but the point is that the cop doesn’t actually know for sure. If he did we wouldn’t need judges or jurors.
Miscarriages of justice happen. Innocent people go to jail. Murderers go free. I have no idea how often these things happen, but my guess is that the actual number would horrify us. I tried to get the defense attorney to estimate a number of cases where the jury gets it wrong and she was too uncomfortable to do so. The number was high.
I wish I had a tip to help you make sure you’re not wrongfully accused of something, but there isn’t one. That’s the point.
It makes me think of my own internal judge and jury. How often do I get it wrong? How often am I so sure of something that I would plant evidence, figuratively speaking? For me it’s a reminder that I am wrong sometimes, even when I am sure that I’m not. Being wrong and being sure you’re right is being wrong twice. It’s better to be wrong once and learn from it.
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Photo is an owl from an owl cafe in Japan.
If you have the chance to see the play Constellations in Las Vegas, definitely go. Friends and I went on a lark last night and thought it was incredible.
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