THE STORY OF MY SEARCH
     When I was in high school, my senior year in free enterprise class; my teacher said that the justice system is and always has been fair. Without thinking about it I said, "How do you figure?" The room got real quiet and my teacher asked me what I said, and I repeated my statement back to him, and provided the most recent example that I could think of.
     About a year prior to this incident a twelve year old African American young man was in the process of robbing a house, when the daughter of the home-owner, an eighteen year old Caucasian female came out of one of the rooms in the house and saw him. She claimed that a twelve year old beat her and then raped her. Honestly the only people that know the truth are him, her, and God.
     I personally find it really hard to imagine a twelve year old beating and then raping an eighteen year old functional woman. As the case developed they said that she never had bruises on her, but there were signs of possible rape. The main reason a lot of people didn't believe her was because it was approximate 8 hours before it was even reported, and it was supposed to have happened during the mid-day sometime.
     The injustice though was not that he was convicted, but if I remember correctly,  he was tried as an adult. I say that this is an injustice because something similar happened a year or so later, but both parties involved were Caucasian. This male was thirteen years old while the female was around eighteen to twenty. The young man in the second scenario was tried as a child and at the age of eighteen, none of this will appear on his record. The other major thing about this case was that it happened somewhere within the vicinity of Lafayette, Louisiana, and with regret I have to say that this is one city where racism is very much alive and present.​​

THE RESULTS OF MY SEARCH

     I googled and couldn't find the example that I'm talking about above, but I did find an example that is local and has happened more recently to Michael Morton of Austin, Texas. He was said to have killed his wife, and all this time he kept saying that he didn't kill his wife. This man was handcuffed, arrested, processed, arraigned, tried by a jury and finally convicted of the murder of his wife. After twenty-five years of being held as a killer in prison, and through DNA evidence this man was finally exonerated because it was found that he wasn't the killer.
     How do you right that wrong? The government seems to think that giving money will help the situation and compensate the hundreds of people found not guilty after being incarcerated for a crime they did not commit. Yes don't get me wrong, money will help them when they get out because that is the major thing needed to survive. However that is not the only thing that I feel the government should be doing. These people have been in prison for so long they may not know how to re-enter back into society. There are hundreds of millions of people in jail that are repeat offenders, not because they do it on purpose, but a lot of them do not know anything different, so they refer back to memory. So then this whole prison thing becomes a cycle, but maybe that is another thing that they might want.
     I feel the best way to right an injustice would be to take steps to right the wrong. Yes, if they are in prison, release them immediately. Yes, provide them with funds so that they can get back on their feet. Apologize to them, so they know and  feel that someone cares about them and their feelings enough to say "hey look I'm sorry". The most important thing though is to setup counseling sessions and group sessions for those people, so they can be helped to be re-introduced back into society. They can slowly get back into the normal everyday groove of things, instead of being given some money, and then telling them you’re out and on your own. That will sure enough put them back into the very same place they just left. There are programs out there of individuals doing it here and there, but this needs to be something done on a much bigger scale, because it is a serious problem.

REFLECTIONS OF MY SEARCH

     To be completely honest reading things like this makes my blood boil. I know that you cannot take the word of every criminal in the system to say they are innocent, but our justice system is flawed. I hate to say that because I do live here and have family and friends, who I know have been wronged by the so called justice system. At one point in my life I did want to be a lawyer because of stuff like this, but after reading many cases, and articles and things even in my law class, there is no point. There is no point because everything in law is subjective, it's based on perception. Just because you perceive it to be one way doesn't always make it the right way. There are some things that are clear cut, but our justice system isn't one of those things and neither is how people are found innocent and guilty.
     Research is just that research, but sometimes it makes you take a second look, or opens up that blind eye you may have had to something. In my case it actually pointed me in the direction that I want to go in life. It also showed me that being an attorney is not for me, but helping people is. During this process I wish that I was able to actually speak to someone who was in this situation, because it probably would have provided a lot more information than just reading what happened; or even making assumptions based on the little knowledge that I do have about it. I do plan on finding a program so that I can possibly help some people re-entering society who have been incarcerated, because I feel that is a major thing that is needed for them to return to society. Emotional support sometimes goes a lot further than money can.