ast month, four Los Angeles police officers were found not guilty of using excessive force when they arrested a man named Rodney King. The acquittal was followed by several days of mayhem, not only in Los Angeles, but in several other cities as well. When the news stories were not about the violence, they were about how "everyone" was shocked and outraged that the jury could have done such a thing as let these four obviously guilty criminals go free. Rodney King was always referred to as a "motorist," and his arrest was a "beating." And it was always pointed out, as if this fact spoke for itself, that King was black and the police were white. In failing to convict the policemen, the system, it was said, had obviously failed.
The comments made by the "Monday morning jurors" revealed, however, that they had come to rely on a system all their own, one which is much more prone to failure than the system they criticized. It is a system which does nothing to make sure those giving testimony are telling the truth, a system which does not test the value and weight of the evidence, a system which knows nothing of the rights of the accused or the responsibilities of the accuser, and a system which operates on passion and prejudice rather than on reasoned examination of the case. These self-appointed jurors were relying on the evidence as it was tried on the news, not as it was tried in the courtroom.
It is, or has been, fundamental in this country that no one shall "be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law . . ." (U.S. Const., Amend. V). While the Constitution is by no means an inspired document, it does implicitly recognize that man must rely on outward appearances. It is only God who can judge the heart. God, however, still requires us to judge the actions of men, and to punish them as they deserve. Given this responsibility and our finitude, we must be careful that our judgments are true, and that we do everything we can to avoid judging wrongly.
This necessity for caution is why we conduct trials with the following: prosecution and defense testing the truth of an account by examining and cross-examining witnesses who give their testimony under oath; rules of procedure and evidence which must be followed in order to avoid prejudice; a disinterested jury, accountable only to God, which hears the evidence and decides the guilt or innocence of the accused; and an impartial judge who presides over the whole affair to make sure it is conducted properly. The court is bound by the jury's decision unless a higher court finds a problem which requires a reversal. But even the higher court is bound by rules which have as their object the accomplishment of justice. To say the system failed requires an examination of the procedure and an objective demonstration that something in particular went wrong. Because trials take place in the open and are conducted on the record, this can be done objectively and without resort to supposition and passion.
A newspaper is a different matter. Those interviewed are under no obligation to tell the truth. They more often give their opinion of a situation than what they know to be fact, if they were even in a position to know any facts at all. They are questioned by someone whose primary interest is telling a good story which the public will pay to read. Truth is secondary. To the extent there are rules, they are designed to protect the newspaper rather than to protect the accused. This whole process is presided over by an editor and a publisher who are even more interested in the paper than the writer. We like to call the result "news" and repeat it as if it were true, but it is gossip just as often. This applies, not only to newspapers, but to all news media.
Those who question the result of a jury trial, or even defend it, based upon what they have heard outside of the courtroom are doing the very thing the jury trial is designed to prevent. They assess the effectiveness of the system ordained to find the truth, and they do so through information they gathered apart from the safeguards the system uses to prevent error. Such an approach to justice, carried to its logical end, would completely obviate the need for courts, except as veneers of due process to place over lynchings. Yet that is the direction we are going. Both courts and newspapers serve necessary functions in a free society, but to confuse the role of one with the other will lead to the end of the freedom they were designed to protect.
It is the responsibility of Christians to see that this tragedy does not occur, as it is the rejection of God which will be the cause of such tragedy. No system is perfect in preventing injustice when sinful men abuse it. God ordained that the testimony of two or three witnesses was necessary to put someone to death (Deut. 17:6). Thus, two lying witnesses were able to have innocent Naboth killed (1Kings 21:13). It is only the salvation which comes through the gospel which will impress upon men's hearts the obligation to give true testimony (Ex. 20:16).
At the same time, it is only a Christian who is able to recognize and accept the limitations imposed by man's finitude. Man judges by the outward appearance, and that outward appearance can be manipulated to unjust ends which condemn the innocent and let the guilty go free. But God judges the heart, and His judgments are eternal, true, just, and right. We can rest assured that, in spite of our mistakes, culpable as they may be, He will not let the sinner escape condemnation, nor will He allow His elect to be precluded from eternity.
This is not an excuse to be slack. Indeed, it is only a Christian who can understand the necessity for diligently pursuing truth and
justice in man's judgments. We must preach the gospel and uphold a right standard. If we fail in obedience to God on this point, we will see
the sword removed from the hands of God's ordained magistrates and placed in the hands of the mob.
