Common sense...it just isn't so common anymore

“The Privilege of the Writ of habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public safety may require it.”

I know I'm not the smartest guy in the world, and although I do wish to go to law school and someday become an attorney, at this time I by no means consider myself an expert in law or in legal interpretation. But when the Constitution of the United States clearly states that the privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus can NOT be suspended, that seems pretty clear to me that the privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus can NOT be suspended!!! No, you didn’t read the same sentence twice by mistake (something I personally do all the time), I wrote the same words again, because frankly, it can’t get any simpler than that. For this reason I was curious as to how Attorney General Gonzales would respond to a seemingly iron clad statement codified in our nation’s written constitution. I really wanted to know how he was going to look Senator Specter and the rest of the Senate Judiciary Committee in their eyes and make a cohesive and logical argument that the rights of the Guantanamo detainees should be, and more importantly, could be taken away from these individuals without violating the Constitution.

Don’t get me wrong, I knew anything that would come out of his mouth couldn’t possibly justify the deprivation of the detainees rights, but I realize that there are many interpretations to the law, and that one of the beauties (but sometimes the beast) of our law, is that it changes. Words, no matter how long ago they were written, can have two very different meanings in two different periods of time, which means most things argued in law are mainly subjective and based wholly on context. I expected an argument nothing short of excellence (but still wrong) from the Attorney General of these United States, a Harvard Law man, and the highest ranking Hispanic official in our government…I was disappointed.

Apparently Attorney General Gonzales’ game plan was to disregard common sense completely…it went off without a hitch. Although the Constitution expressly states the right cannot be taken away except in specific situations, and the United States Supreme Court stated that this right also applies to non-citizens, Attorney General Gonzales decided to justify the government’s actions by attacking the idea of the right applying to detainees andcc telling the Judicial Affairs committee that it never says the words “Every individual in the United States or every citizen is hereby granted or assured the right to habeas.”, within the Constitution. His claim is that since the Constitution does not specify who exactly has the right to writ of habeas corpus, it means that these individuals in Guantanamo never had the right to begin with. Well, using Attorney General Gonzales’ same logic, wouldn’t that mean no one in the United States has the right to writ of habeas corpus? No one particular people, citizen or non citizen, was ever expressly included in the right to writ of habeas, so wouldn’t that mean according to the Attorney General, that none of us have the right to begin with? In that case, why would the Constitution expressly prohibit the suspension of a right that no one is even guaranteed in the first place? As was stated so eloquently by Samuel L. Jackson in the film Pulp Fiction, “the absence of evidence, is not the evidence of absence.” Just because no one is specified as to having the right to writ of habeas corpus, does not mean that no one has the right to begin with. In fact, just the opposite is being asserted in the statement in the Constitution. By only stating when the privilege can be taken away, the Constitution creates a basic and logical assumption that the privilege is present in all other occasions without further exception.

Attorney General Gonzales’ testimony in front of the Senate Judicial Committee further solidifies my belief that this administration will assertively attack any type of constitutional privilege that will disallow the regime from doing what it wants. If you did not read the definition of writ of habeas corpus, it is the legal action detainees can take to seek relief from unlawful imprisonment. Now why would the government want to take that away? Wait, unless….no, they can’t possibly want to…. want to unlawfully detain someone. Bingo! Unless the people as a whole realize what is going on, I wouldn’t be surprised if this regime goes so far as to start a war with Iran, North Korea, etc. just to declare a state of emergency and maintain power. Mark my words Big Brother’s coming, then we’ll see how much people start caring about protecting their civil rights.

"Accusations fly, like bullets do"

The police profession is one of the most valiant professions in this country. There aren’t many careers that force people to sacrifice their individual safety on a daily basis to protect the lives of others and preserve the moral fabric of the surrounding community. This is exactly the reason why not everyone can be an officer. In order to properly fulfill his/her duty to the public, an officer must necessarily hold values and skills that the rest of us can conveniently and routinely ignore. Officers must genuinely care for the safety as well as the rights of those whom they protect. They must also have responsibility—responsibility to know when to use force and have the logic to quickly gage the level of force appropriate for each unique situation they may find themselves in. Some may think this is an impossibly high standard for someone who is essentially no different than you and I, but I ask, would you hold someone to a lower standard if the merit of their decision is the difference between your life, or your death? These are the chosen few men and women whose split second decisions carry the heavy burden of our safety, our rights, and our livelihood. Because their burden is so heavy, because their mistakes are so costly, I hold their integrity to a higher standard.

In this police shooting video http://www.filecabi.net/video/goddammit30.html, the officers that killed the unarmed man were completely unjustified in their actions and are wholly responsible for the man’s death. I have no idea what this man did before he was killed that night, nor do I care. What I do draw concern with however, are the officers that used their government issued uniforms, government issued badges, and government issued firearms, summarily meaning they used the authority of the government, to unjustly deny a man of his most basic right as a human being, his right to live. It is incomprehensible for me to believe that officers; with bullet proof vests, automatic weapons, attack dogs, and riot gear, not to mention at least 21 weeks of police academy training and the common sense they were born with; would find it reasonable to use lethal force and shoot an unarmed man in that situation over 80 times, then leave him to die on his porch.

Unfortunately, what I can comprehend is what is far too common the case, that these officers acted without reason at all but more on an instinctual level not more developed or trained than a young boy with a water gun, eager to soak up anything that moves. They completely disregarded their responsibility to protect the rights of everyone around them and abused their privileges that come with being an officer, and made a decision without thinking, a bad a decision. We all make bad decisions, I am guilty of a few (only a few) in my lifetime, but the difference between my bad decisions and the bad decision of those officers, is that in their case someone’s life was at stake, and so many others lives have been affected as a result of their bad decision. It affects the man’s child to be born, his girlfriend who has to raise a baby alone, and his parents who now have to find the money to have a funeral for their son. But guess who it doesn’t affect? It doesn’t affect those officers who shot the bullets. Through their qualified immunity and the low standard of reasonableness for an officer to use force, chances are these officers will not be reprimanded in any form by their department, and they certainly will not face any type of criminal charges for the murder they committed.

So why isn’t this a big issue? Why don’t we hear debates over police misconduct reform alongside more popular issues on a national scale? The sad answer to that question is that cases of excessive violence and police brutality are overwhelmingly minority problems. White cops shoot and kill Black/Latino suspect. White cops beat Black/Latino suspect. These physical displays of violence that graze the 10:00 o’clock news every so often but occur every day are visual reminders that racism is still prevalent in American society. Unjustified shootings like the one in this video will continue as long as officers go unpunished for their actions. Officers will continue to treat suspects, especially Black suspects, as lives less than human and will act accordingly unless police policy addresses the problem. Not everyone possesses the skills and principles to become an officer and most officers are some of the most admirable people you will ever meet, but academies seem to let anyone through their programs and give them free reign to protect some, and terrorize the rest. It only takes one bad cop, to kill one person, what we don’t know is who that one person can be, and as long as it can be me, my family, or the children I plan to have, I will fight these injustices and binge the law enforcement profession of its imperfections until it shines crystal like my vision of what police policy should be.