Rules and Law

Friends,

In my number of years of work within the field of criminal justice I have come to honor the importance of the rule of law. I have been personally involved in legislating laws, and I have engaged in monitoring their adherence by advocating for prison reform and supporting the legislature and the courts to deal with criminal cases in a fair and humane way. I hold a tacit understanding about the sacredness of the rule of law and the judicial system that reviews and applies it. I consider the role of the court in society, at least ideally, is to foster nonviolence by providing for the alternative to violent retribution and unaccountable vigilantism. The court system has the difficult task of holding a center amidst the whole maelstrom of human experience, from noble efforts at reconciliation to attempts to address the gravest of traumatic tragedies. The court system also guards one of our most precious rights in an egalitarian, democratic governance: our ability to bring our sorrows, resentments, anger and calls for retribution before an impartial judge and a panel of our peers with the expectation that our grievances will get a fair hearing and will receive some level of resolution. 

If you managed to read my paragraph above, your gut reaction may also be to challenge my assessment of the sacred, ideal design of the rule of law. You are likely aware of how difficult it is to actually make our legal system live up to its ideals. The system is too easily rigged in favor of the rich and powerful while perpetuating the injustices of poverty and powerlessness among the poor and marginalized. And most importantly, our legal system is dealing with human beings. Real people simply cannot ever be treated, no matter how we may try to do so, with a universal cookie cutter brand of fair and mechanistic justice. Each person who is victimized, or who commits a crime, has a story, and the purpose of a court hearing is to try to give audience to those stories and weigh out the evidence and provide some level of recompense for whatever has caused the harm. When the court dramas are played out in public, such as the current Trump trials, we see some of the best and the worst of the system’s success at achieving accountability and equal justice

Similar to legislated laws, our lives are more likely subject to a more familiar frame of law we call rules. We generally readily accept that a family, community or a group needs to establish formal or informal rules of behavior that support the safety and welfare of the common good, and we most often try to follow them. I like to think of rules (and many laws) as “training wheels” to help us learn and maintain consideration and respect within the community. At best these “training wheel” rules can give way to the expectation that people will grow into a community that will trust the common sense wisdom of simply “doing unto others how we want ourselves to be treated.” Besides the rules in our families, schools, and community associations, for example, I have been pleased that our our informal set of rules called our “Civility First…So We Can Work Together” pledge now hangs on the wall of all of our local administrative offices here on Whidbey Island. The pledge serves as a reminder of the importance of establishing and maintaining respectful conduct if we are succeed in fostering our common lives together. It is probably fair to say most of us will always continue to benefit from the steadying purpose of fair rules.

I will close by emphasizing again that respect, even reverence, for the rule of law provides a sacred context for a community to more likely live in peace. I personally hold a particular honor for the judges and others who professionally and diligently apply the rule of law while also respecting the dignity of all involved. The ultimate goal of the courts and the rule of law, then, is to provide at least some level of reconciliation among the affected parties rather than years of seething resentment, bitterness and calls for retribution. And to enhance this ultimate goal further, I have sought over decades now to frame wrongdoing/crime not just in terms of whether a law is broken, but in terms of what harm has been done. This is the practice of restorative justice that brings more focus on the victims of harm and the impact of criminal behavior on the whole community rather than simply focusing on how to hold the offender accountable. 

In gratitude for all those engaged in honoring the sacred rule of law,

Tom

Footnote: As I close this evening’s Saturday Evening Post the media is broadcasting breaking news of the assassination attempt on Donal Trump. It is another, more dramatic, personal, chilling example of the specter of gun violence that haunts our nation. May the response to the assassination attempt be contained - again within the rule of law - and the horror of it all can be resolved nonviolently.