David Camm’s murder verdict was overturned today, and there will be a third murder trial.
Read the Indiana Supreme Court opinion.
I find it regrettable that so many opinions about this decision will be proffered within the parameters of what a third trial will cost.
Yes, it will be an awful lot.
Yes, I’d rather spend the money on other things.
Yes, it’s frustrating.
But that isn’t really the point of justice, is it? Even the most cursory consideration of American history should lead most fair-minded people to concur with this assessment, as written at another local blog:
How many times do we have to convict this guy? The answer is, one time – fairly.
Conversely, if the evidence is valid or admissable, acquit him and be done with it. Either way, do it fairly.
It’s always fashionable to bash lawyers and decry the expense of justice in cases like this. There are valid reasons for both these points of view, and I’m not the one to outline the case for how the situation might be improved, although from where I’m sitting, two successive prosecutions have been botched. Where’s the rage against the lawyers responsible for the mishandlings, and hence the reversals?
There should be a large element of conscience to all this. Who among us is willing to dispense with the sort of legal safeguards against abuses and errors that were exercised today by the Indiana Supreme Court’s ruling? Things like this prove the viability of the legal syystem. At the same time, calculations of justice in the context of Steve Price’s nickels and dimes proves just how shallow we can be at times.
Get it right, or let him go.
But feel free to disagree.
