It is the day after Thanksgiving, 2014. It has been 111 days since Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson; five days since a grand jury decided there was not enough evidence to indict Officer Wilson.
Discussions of "what is justice" abound, are inflamed, impassioned, not altogether coherent. But they rage on and will continue to rage on, because the whole sad ordeal will live on in the inevitable sequel -- the civil suit.
"What is justice?" didn't start with Ferguson. Those discussions pre-date Plato's Republic. But that is exactly why Ferguson is relevant in a discussion about justice and the interplay of facts with the law, and for the role The Ferguson Legacy may play in answering What is Justice?
Daryl Parks, of Parks & Crump Law Firm in Tallahassee, Florida* is the attorney for the Brown family. On Fox's Hannity Show, almost immediately after Prosecutor McCullough announced the grand jury voted to not indict Officer Wilson, Mr. Parks stated: "It's always a travesty when our judicial system fails to respond to a very horrific situation like what we saw here today."
Now, a travesty is a false, absurd, or distorted representation of something.** So what exactly was the false, absurd, or distorted representation to which Parks alluded? He didn't really say. But given his particular investment in the case, I think he means the travesty was that Wilson was not indicted. But Parks had not had
time to see the evidence presented to the grand jury when he said what he said on the Hannity Show. So on what is his travesty view based?
time to see the evidence presented to the grand jury when he said what he said on the Hannity Show. So on what is his travesty view based?
He speaks to a different perspective. "(M)any expected — and demanded — an indictment as a potent symbol that a black victim’s blood is no less valuable than a white one's."*** An indictment for this purpose would have been a human sacrifice. It's message would reward irrational rantings and mob narcissism; it would confirm the false value of a predetermined bias of an outcome?
The concept of Justice must stand as a reminder to overcome the strong human tendency to dismiss or distort evidence contrary to our beliefs and readily seek out evidence that supports our views. Giving up the struggle to achieve that would be the real travesty. Justice is an iterative process.
* The firm's slogan is “We Help David Fight Goliath”
** Dictionary.com
*** Schwartz, Yishai. “Don’t Blame the Grand Jury for Not Indicting Darren Wilson. Blame the Law.” Politics, Culture, Magazine. New Republic, November 25, 2014. http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120408/ferguson-grand-jury-didnt-indict-darren-wilson-good-legal-reasons.
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