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From: Jasper
Date: 8/30/03
Time: 5:13:49 PM
Remote Name: 68.73.199.101
Charlie,
Most people don’t mind being wrong. What they can’t stand is the embarrassment of having to admit it. The fear of public humiliation alone is enough to cause some people to take extreme actions that run counter to logic. People die in fires all the time because they were trying to get dressed instead of escaping in their underwear or their birthday suits.
In the 1940’s, a man I learned about in the book Justice Be Damned allowed himself to be put to death in the Illinois electric chair rather than to admit an embarrassing secret that would have cleared him. The authorities learned the truth but sat on it because he was poor, black and homosexual. They didn’t give care about poor, black homosexuals.
It’s a mistake to think that things like that happen because the authorities are evil. They aren’t. They are worse than evil. They are cowards. Where the stakes are high, the cost of admitting you are wrong is also high. To avoid the risk, any excuse will do.
Look what happened to Galileo when he found a way to prove that Earth was not the center of the universe. The authorities refused to look at it. They threatened him with the rack, instead. They threatened him because his proof threatened their authority.
It is human nature to resist challenges to our status and self-esteem. Where a considerable emotional, intellectual or finance investment has been made in made to become a part of an established order or to promote a given point of view, the resistance becomes greater.
Think of the guy who bought O.J.’s Heisman Trophy just so he could destroy it. Think of what it would mean to him if someone else were proven guilty. Think of all the people whose status and reputations as stars of the criminal justice system rest on their record of putting large numbers of people in prison. If they accept a test that proves they were wrong, they undermine the validity of their respected status as well as the customs and practices that gave them their status.
The extent to which DNA is being used to exonerate people who have been convicted of serious crimes is a threat to the entire criminal justice system. To put this into perspective you need only recall the Supreme Court’s recent ruling that it is permissible to put a man do death after exculpatory evidence has been found – as long as the prosecutors could show that he had a fair trial. –Jasper