People need good lies. There are too many bad ones.
- Kurt Vonnegut Jr
Conservative (here read extreme right wing Republican) politicians and their constituents have a propensity for lying with relative ease. I do not mean to suggest that liberal Democrats and their constituents do not lie. More than a few do.
However, good and bad lies are woven into the very fabric of American politics, be they uttered in the White House or the house next door.
What sets so many extreme right wing conservatives apart from their more liberal counterparts is the former's willingness to craft their lies to fit certain situations in the laws of the land. It should come as no surprise that some aspects of America's Laws are set up to favor those who can lie convincingly.
Casual observers of court room procedure would be hard pressed to find a more instructive example of what I mean than the process now in use to select potential jurors to serve on death penalty cases. All potential jurors are questioned by the lawyers of the prosecution and defense.
Long before the actual trial takes place an attorney for the prosecution will ask each potential juror if he/she can listen to and take in the intricate nature of the presented evidence, then objectively weigh all of it before voting a a 'life' or 'death' sentence for the defendant.
In response to such a question most potential jurors who are liberal in both thought and deed will quickly admit that they would not vote to put a defendant to death under any circumstances, no matter what the evidence might reveal.
At that point the attorney for the prosecution will ask the judge to 'strike' that potential juror for the bias the question will have exposed. Driven by the law the judge must honor that request.
Had the potential juror told a good lie and said 'I am not for or against capital punishment: I would have to know and weigh all of the facts in evidence before I could make a decision to spare or take someone's life', the judge would be far more inclined not to strike that person.
Conversely, when the defense attorney asks a potential juror who is a right wing hard line conservative whether they can vote for a 'life' sentence they will lie and say yes, knowing that they are much more inclined to vote for the 'death' sentence.
Unfortunately, because they answered the question the way they did, the judge will of course not be able to strike them off.
Eventually when enough conservative potential jurors have been questioned, because of their willingness to lie, the resulting makeup of the jury is often decidely pro death penalty. Such a jury all but guarantees that the defendant will be sentenced to death.
So, potential jurors who are liberal and progressive in their thinking must learn to 'lie for life' in order to change the culture of the jury.
There are a lot of things I chose not to say in this essay because I trust the now better informed reader's intelligence. If the reader would like to know more please feel free to write me a letter and send it to me direct via the address below. Alas, it is too late for me, but what I have shared has the potential to save a number of lives in upcoming death penalty trials.
I hope that, for my having shared these truths about America's death penalty laws and schemes, the reader will see 'life' and 'death' in the court room more clearly. I leave you with the well chosen words of Friedrich Nietzsche: 'he who cannot lie does not know what the truth is'.
Brandon Astor Jone, G3-83
UNO#400574; EF-122216
Georgia Diagnostic Classification Prison
P.O. Box 3877
Jackson, Georgia 30233
USA
Buy Brandon's book, While the Mississippi and Hudson merge, from iUniverse
