Dinner in Lawrence, and the Complexity of Justice

Last night, for my birthday, I had dinner in Lawrence, Kansas with two great friends: Judy Roitman (mathematician, dharma master, and poet (her recent book of poetry is called Diamond Notebooks)) and Stan Lombardo (classicist, zen master, and pool player). They recently (with Stephen Addiss) brought out a new book: Zen Sourcebook: Traditional Documents from China, Korea, and Japan. Before dinner, I walked around Lawrence, bought myself a new bag and a new pair of flip-flops, and met up with two other wonderful friends (also from my Kansas Zen Center days): Tim and Betsy Forcade (here is Betsy's Feng Shui website, and here is more about Tim, who is an artist).

Later this week I will be testifying at the trial of a man who, it is charged, got out of his car after being stopped by a highway patrolman, and shot the trooper numerous times with a handgun. As is often the case, it is difficult to be working on the defense side in this case, because it is impossible not to feel great sympathy for the trooper, who was terribly injured (and terrified) by the defendant's actions. (Fortunately, he not only survived, but recovered.) Throughout my adult life, working in the criminal justice system, I have lived with the discomfort of the need to "take sides" in an adversary system. Those who work on the prosecution side are not immune from the sense that, sometimes, they are causing harm; and, on the defense side, it can be difficult to explain, to family, friends (and even to yourself, sometimes): "How can you defend that guy?" There's a good article in the NYT about a lawyer in New York City who finds himself confronted with that question right now, in the defense of the Sean Bell homicide case. Here's an excerpt:

"How could Mr. Ricco, a prominent black lawyer and lifetime resident of Harlem, represent an officer responsible for the death of an unarmed black man? Even if the officer is himself black? ... 'I got phone calls from many people who tried to discourage me from getting involved in the case. I was very disturbed by some of the views that were expressed. "You’re seen as a hero in our community. How can you represent them?" ...'The answer to it is very simple,' he said. 'I thought about many of the young black men who were prosecuted and executed in small towns in the old South. Excellent white lawyers living in those towns were intimidated from getting involved with those cases. Would I fold to the community’s sense of outrage? I hope to think if I was a lawyer in those small towns, I would have stood up.'"

The point, I think, is that nothing is ever as simple as it seems. We have an adversary system in which we have to take sides, and when we do so, we find that there is always something to be said about the merits and perspectives of each "side" of any situation. It may be (for example) that a man who engages in despicable and destructive behavior was mentally ill, and unable to really understand what he was doing; and it may be that there are alternatives other than "put-him-away-forever" that would serve the ends of justice (whatever that may be!) and community safety.