When people ask me what I believe is the biggest problem with the United States Criminal Justice System, I always state that our society is to quick to want to charge someone with a crime and that most people charged with a crime are over-charged.
An example of this excess can be found in the fact that the State of Florida alone has managed to criminalize over 7,000 individual activities. And this number does not include municipal violations criminalized by individual municipalities.
Which brings me to the most recent news story that caused me to post my concern. While reading CNN, I came across the story: 16-year-old catcher collapses, dies after pitch hits chest protector.
While a tragic story, the headline pretty much told the story. A 16 year old was catching for a pitcher and was struck in the catcher’s protector plate by a pitch. Unfortunately this resulted in a freak accident which caused the child to die. The first thing that came to my mind was sympathy for the child’s parents, for the loss they suffered, for the sorrow of the child’s teammates.
But what was one of the first thing authorities considered? That a crime had occurred. For some reason, Police Capt. Heriberto Rodriguez felt it necessary to dispel concerns that the freak accident was actually a criminal assault by the pitcher when he said “We don’t see anything remotely illegal on this.”
My question is who thought something illegal occurred? Why did the news even think to inquire if a crime were possible. Why the first quarter of the article, which should have just been about the boy’s life and the strange nature of his passing, dealt with the possibility of a criminal act is beyond me.
And that goes to the root of our problem as a society, we have become a society that looks to prosecute someone regardless of intent or culpability, a society who must have someone to blame, even if there is no one to blame.
That is our society’s mentality, The Criminal Mentality.
9 responses to “The Criminal Mentality”
I agree and it’s an unfortunate state of affairs. But I think concomitant with the tendency to over-criminalize is an equal tendency to over-litigate. We are probably the most litigious society on the planet. We continuously look for someone to blame for everything, even acts of God, and are eager to sue for compensation.
Part of this is probably because there are large social entities that do exploit and defraud the weak and the innocent, many times with impunity. The insurance industry and its whole foundation of compensation and profits built on probabilities and odds doesn’t help the situation much either. Also it’s hard these days to get individuals to take responsibility for themselves and their actions, without them blaming others, their environment or a myriad of excuses (perhaps because they see others more privileged or powerful getting by with terrible things).
I’m surprised and pleased to see an attorney write what you did, even if your own livelihood would suffer if the world was a better place and people didn’t seem to want to blame someone else and prosecute or sue for things we used to simply call accidents or mishaps. But I think there are many out there that profit from The Criminal Mentality and its collateral damage, so it may not disappear too soon. But this is certainly the season to contemplate how our society might be much better if we weren’t so quick to jump to profit or pass judgement on others. Thanks for reminding us.
Richard, great article as always & I agree with your contribution, but, I view these accidents from a different angle. Statements that were made as you stated seem to “open the door for those looking for someone to blame & sue!”
My question is: Who will the parent’s sue? (hopefully they will choose not to!) All day long endless commericals are running for Civil Attorney’s “wanting to take your case for a fraction of the settlement!” Will they want to sue the pitcher, the league the kids were playing in, the school? Sometimes, things are just “freak accidents, no one’s fault” but it seems there is always an attorney willing to take a case “even when it doesn’t look to the layman to have legal merit, hoping there will be settlement money offered from an insurance company.”
Since we didn’t see the interview, possibly the interviewer was the one asking about criminal charges and the le officer was just responding to those questions. Hard to say, but I bet there will be a civil suit over this.
If a child dies, the police are called, and the media is going to jump on any criminal responsibility if they can get someone to say something. Sad, but true.
You cannot do anything anymore without the possibility of getting sued. The word accident has totally gone out the window. Everyone seems to think any kind of accident anymore has some nefarious meaning behind it. The poor child that threw the ball is going through enough hell without help from others/media. It makes me so sad our society has come to this. God Bless both of these boys.
“I always state that our society is to quick to”
Richard do me a favor and correct the above typo, “to” should be “too” shouldn’t it? I know you monitor comments before posting them. Please don’t post this but if I’m right consider correcting it. If I’m wrong, ignore.
Otherwise good article. It took me a while to figure out you may have been talking about a civil suit. Before reading the comments and when I first read it, I thought you were talking about a criminal investigation into an obvious accident. What a waste of time and resources that would be. Especially when so many deliberate violent crimes occur daily around the world.
Oh boy, do I ever feel stupid now. You’re not monitoring before posting comments and I’ve pointed out an inconsequential typo that means squat. Please ignore. I wasn’t really trying to be petty. I thought it was said in confidence.
The 16 year old who died had his funeral mass about 3 blocks away from me.
In the NY Daily News (and in my local and NJ newspaper) where I read about it, after seeing someone mention it on Facebook, his father did mention something about a the school not having a defibillator.
“The boy’s father said he wanted to know whether the gym the team was practicing in had a defibrillator”.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/high-school-baseball-player-thomas-adams-dies-hit-chest-pitch-practice-article-1.469819
Civil case? Well, it looks like that could. Criminal? No. It is very interesting that the sheriff felt compelled to mention that there “was nothing remotely illegal”.
Ther IS no one to blame here. Another freak accident. I feel bad for the pitcher.
LindaNewYork, just as I had suspected! Questioning if the school had a dfibibrillator! An attorney “advertising on TV might consider this case on a contingency” & offer his services for a “fraction of the settlement” & “no cost to the family.”
Richard, I understand you are appalled at the press conferences often offered by LE, but I am appalled at the Attorney’s willing to take these cases for $$$$$, when clearly they were only an accident, sometimes insurance companies will pay something “just to get the law suit to go away!” (my friends that are attorney’s have told me that many times) I bet there will be an attorney willing to take this case too.
Richard, so which is worse, LE or Attorney’s hanging around cases like this willing to sue to make a buck off an accident. Families always want to blame someone when a child dies, seems the Attorney’s help them do just that!
There is enough blame to go around from LE to the Civil Attorney’s but certainly not the pitcher that was probably the child’s friend. jmo.
I didn’t proof read, sorry for the spelling errors.