People v. State

After I wrote my last post, I thought, as I often do, that I’d just written something controversial and, not unreasonably, likely to get me in “trouble” with the Indiana attorney Disciplinary Commission.

But a moment’s reflection reminded me just how un-American this whole notion that “public confidence” in the State is a good thing is. Even were the government much less evil than it currently is (and government at its best, according to Thomas Paine, is but a necessary evil), it would be un-American to “trust” it.

This is because presuming the government Guilty is a necessary corollary of the presumption of Innocence accorded actual living, breathing human beings. You’re on a jury and the State is asking you to convict the man sitting at the table in the courtroom furthest from you? Locking a human being up in a cage like an animal is normally a heinous crime, so presume the government Guilty and its intentions malicious until it has proved to you the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. (And since the State doesn’t trust you to determine the consequences for the defendant should you convict him, and doesn’t even trust you with the knowledge of what it intends to do to him should you convict him, you should accordingly interpret this burden to be sky-high.) A state supreme court has reversed a court of appeals decision that would have set a man free, and has thereby reinstated his conviction and 45 year prison sentence? Presume it Guilty unless it published a carefully reasoned and factually accurate justification of its momentous decision and explained exactly why it thought the court of appeals got it wrong. Congress just passed a bill authorizing the President, at his discretion, to “declare” (in secret) a citizen of the United States to be an Enemy of the State and to detain him without trial until the end of the “War on Terror”? For God’s sake, presume it Guilty:

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