- Less Than Justice?

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In America, we pride ourselves on our freedoms but in reality, we are one of the least free countries in the world, at least in regard to its prison population. When a country that makes up only 4.4 percent of the global population incarcerates 22 percent of that same global population it’s hard to say in the same sentence that it is the most free country.

Sure, people here can basically say whatever they please and not face any consequence for doing so. We do enjoy freedoms, and of course, in any society, there is a need for a justice system but to what ends. A large portion of the United States prisoners are locked up due to a drug conviction or a drug-related crime, which itself is debatable.

There is, however, another much smaller group of people who find themselves caught up in the tangled mess that is our justice system, those who are innocent of the crimes they stand accused. So is the story of James Dennis who was convicted in 1992 of shooting Williams during a robbery, primarily on the testimony of three eyewitnesses. Decades of appeals followed, in which his lawyers argued that investigators and prosecutors withheld evidence that undermined his innocence. It landed before U.S. District Judge Anita Brody, who in 2013 ripped into the prosecution and ordered a new trial.

Now after spending 25 years on death row for a killing he said he didn’t do along with a federal judge tossing out his conviction, James Dennis was brought to a Philadelphia courtroom Thursday to make a difficult choice: plead no contest to the crime and go home, or gamble on another trial. A choice that is not really a choice at all.

It goes without saying that Mr. Dennis made a plea of no contest, probably a decision he deems bittersweet. He made the following statement before he entered his plea. “I need to do what I need to do for my family,” Dennis told his brother, Greg. It’s not a free country when people know of someone’s innocence but instead of doing justice they work the politics of keeping a conviction and not owing any money to someone who more than deserves it.