Oklahoma Prosecutors Defy the Will of Voters Seeking Criminal Justice Reform
A first post described Oklahoma Christian University’s Complex Dialogues with Bryan Stevenson, and Stevenson’s passionate call for ending mass incarceration. His keynote address followed a series of panel discussionson the criminal justice system that appealed to both our emotions and intellects.
Christy Sheppard’s introductory presentation personified the forum’s balanced appeal to “the Head” and “the Heart.” She poignantly introduced a fact-driven discussion on the injustices of our system, as well as Stevenson’s call for grace and mercy. Ms. Sheppard is the cousin of Debbie Carter, whose murder in Oklahoma led to the wrongful convictions featured in Netflix’s “The Innocent Man,” based on the true story which inspired John Grisham’s famous novel. The two men convicted for the crime spent more than a decade in prison before being exonerated by DNA evidence. Sheppard is now a widely admired reform advocate.
Other forum participants included the ACLU/OK’s Ryan Kiesel, former Speaker of the Oklahoma House Kris Steele, a public defender, an assistance district attorney, a judge, a journalist, former inmates, and many others who are intimately familiar with Oklahoma’s horribly flawed criminal justice system.
Stevenson’s keynote was devoted to a renunciation of the “politics of revenge,” and a call for “friends of faith … to lift up our voices.” However, the noted attorney and author was free to make such a passionate case because he has three decades of experience in using facts to defend his clients. Stevenson also made an understated observation which helps explain what may be the greatest flaw of the system. He explained, “Our courts are too committed to finality, not fairness.”
Ryan Kiesel was more blunt in describing what I (a former legal historian) would indict as the original sin of the system. Prosecutors drive a system where 95 or more percent of cases are settled with a plea bargain. The system would break down if many defendants asserted their right to a jury trial. This means that district attorneys exercise their unchecked power to overcharge, to intimidate defendants into accepting a plea CONTINUE READING: Oklahoma Prosecutors Defy the Will of Voters Seeking Criminal Justice Reform - Living in Dialogue
