Many of us have read Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island and Kidnapped…
Those are probably his two most famous books. Stevenson himself thought his best work was Catriona. It’s a story set in 18th Century Scotland about a young heir fighting to recover his patrimony from a corrupt and vicious Establishment, one that uses every means possible to thwart him.
When David Balfour, the protagonist, goes to the state prosecutor to seek the prosecution of his enemy for murder he is told; “This is a political case-ah, yes Mr. Balfour. Whether we like it or not, the case is political-and I tremble when I think what issues depend on it. To a political case, I need scarce tell a young man of your education we approach with very different thoughts from one which is criminal only.”
Nothing has changed in 250 years.
Your ability under the legal system to get redress if you have been wronged depends largely on who you are and who hurt you. You only have to consider the sick, co-dependent relationship between the Kansas City Star and local politicians to see this confirmed again and again.
I’ve written about how local prosecutors will throw the book at you if you’re from a disfavored demographic, and let you get away with murder-literally -if you are a favored constituency of the Democratic Party:
Crime and Punishment on Grand Blvd., 1-9-15
Living in the Guilted Age, 5-11-16.
Why Not Rename the Nicholas Fountain, 6-11-20.
The Necessary Murder, 7-1-20.
Useful Idiots-KC Edition, 9-10-20.
More Racial Arson from the KC Star, 5-14-23.
The latest joint venture in race baiting, i.e. making whites feel guilty and blacks feel angry, between the Star and a local politician was highlighted in a prominent story from February: “Jackson County Prosecutor started a conviction review unit. Some say it’s ‘smoke and mirrors’.” 2-5-24.
It describes the role of a Conviction Integrity Unit in reviewing criminal convictions from years earlier when there is a reason to believe they were wrongfully decided. The goal is to see to it that innocent people are freed when new evidence emerges that they did not commit the crime for which they were convicted.
The article highlights the record of the St. Louis County Prosecutor’s Office in acting to vacate the conviction of an inmate on Missouri’s death row. The inmate was Marcellus “Khaliffah” Williams. The other murder case focused on was that of Kevin Strickland, a man convicted of a triple murder in 1978 here in Kansas City.
Even though the latter case was also set aside thanks to the efforts of the CIU in the Jackson County Prosecutors Officer, the Star found people who were critical of the local prosecutor. They quoted Kansas City Attorney Sean O’Brien who was unhappy that the Jackson County Prosecutors’ CIU had not taken on a case that he had been working on for years on behalf of a convict named Byron Case. They also cited Cliff Middleton, the son of Ken Middleton, whose conviction the younger Middleton had spent years trying to get aside. He’s been unsuccessful and was also critical of the local CIU for declining to review his father’s case.
Finally, the Star had quoted an academic named Marissa Bayers Blueston, an assistant director of an affiliate of the University of Pennsylvania. Blueston joined with Attorney O’Brien in criticizing how the local CIU was set up. Specifically, it allegedly lacks detailed written guidelines and autonomy from the prosecutorial function. They both felt that requiring the actual discovery of new evidence was too high a bar to require for reopening a criminal conviction. Their criticism went to how the CIU was organized and its procedures and not to the good faith and integrity of its actions.
I think the reason for the disparity in outcomes of the four cases is not mere procedure. I sympathize with the attorneys and family members of inmates Case and Middleton. The real reason the latter two convictions are unchallenged is likely that the defendants are white. The reason the Williams and Strickland convictions have been and will be overturned is that the two inmates are black.
The Strickland case outcome is particularly egregious.
Even though the Missouri Attorney General and the Supreme Court had each reviewed the case and declined to interfere, The Star launched a publicity campaign in 2020 and enlisted the help of numerous elected officials, state and federal (in addition to Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker), to bring pressure to bear.
The political offensive prevailed, even though the facts in the case were a lot less compelling than with the two white inmates. Nor was the law any more in Strickland’s favor than with the two white inmates.
We have arrived at a totally politicalized legal system where your ability to receive justice turns on your ideology.
The Kansas City Star aids and abets this on a regular basis, targeting whites for severe punishment, while often shielding blacks from any punishment at all. Of course, what would you expect of a newspaper that has its own Race & Equity Editor?
If the whole aim of your existence is to show on a daily basis that the U.S. is “systemically racist” ,overturning the wrongful conviction of white death row inmates doesn’t help you. In fact, it might hurt you because it shows a miscarriage of justice can happen to the whitest among us. (I cordially invite you to attend with me the Monday 8:00 a.m. docket in Independence and Olathe Municipal Courts. That will dispel any notion of White Privilege.)
By contrast, overturning the convictions of black convicts helps immeasurably. It leads to anger and bitterness among black people because they feel they are being singled out for harsh and unfair treatment. It allows you to bludgeon white people into accepting this as further proof of white oppression, and that they can best expiate their guilt by voting the straight Democratic ticket and paying money to assuage that guilt.
“Because the point of Political Correctness is not and never has been about any of the items it imposes, but about the imposition itself. Much less is it about creating a definable common culture or achieving some definable good. On the retail level it is about the American ruling class’s felt need to squeeze the last drops of voter participation out of the Democratic Party’s habitual constituencies. On the wholesale level it is a war on civilization waged to indulge identity politics.” Angelo Codevilla, The Rise of Political Correctness,
Claremont Review of Books, Fall, 2016.
Ideology is just a fancy word for BULLSHIT!
A white ex-KCPD detective sits in jail simply for being white.
When justice is avoided due to fear of making a certain race mad you no longer are seeing justice being served.
It’s perfectly obvious that in the last 5 years, “disadvantaged” groups can do no wrong and “privileged” groups can do no right.
Instead of extolling excellence, and using it as an example for everyone to aspire to, this country has chosen to focus on failures and used them to drag everyone down.
I don’t know how we got here, but it’s a miserable existence. Next stop, communism.
Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged & The Fountainhead) should be required reading for students & teachers.