Miscarriage of justice in Detroit...

The case of the so called “Porch Shooter” in Dearborn, Michigan has been a hotly debated case even on a national level. Most cases involving a white shooter and a black victim garner a lot of attention even though, as in this case, race played absolutely no role.

Watching the judge sentence Theodore Wafer to 15 – 30 years behind bars for second degree murder to me, was a miscarriage of justice; it was based on influential factors that perverted the real meaning of the principle that justice is blind.

He was absolutely guilty but guilty of poor judgment that resulted in death of another human being. The judge cried as she sentenced him saying she realized that he was a good man, not a criminal, certainly not a racist and that he would have lived out his life as a responsible and productive citizen of our society BUT…someone died because of his actions and he must pay the price.

I agree that he must pay the price for his guilt but what price and it is here that I take umbrage at what the system dealt him.

He was, after all, sleeping in his own house and did not look for trouble but trouble came to him in the form of a young woman who was drunk and on drugs and banging loudly on his door. He should have called 911 and waited for the police to come or having a shotgun, he could have waited for the person banging on his door to actually break in and then shot. 

But no, he did not call 911 and decided to open the door and shoot the person banging through the screen door; a very bad choice…he called the shooting an accident.

His defense team made the mistake on using a self-defense argument instead of treating it like a terrible accident so they are somewhat complicit in the jury finding him guilty because they did not buy the self-defense argument.

But be as it may, his crime was not a murder and certainly not a second degree murder and the judge and the jury, in my mind, knew it BUT…

Here is where in this case, justice was not blind. People attached a racial component to this case even though race was never a factor and in so doing they influenced the way that the judge and the jury saw this case.

The whites on the jury knew the country was watching and the last thing they wanted to do was appear racist in any form or fashion and giving a lesser verdict as say manslaughter which would have been more appropriate, would have made them look racist. The judge, a white blond, also feared a lesser sentence of a more appropriate 5-6 years, would have sent a message of racism to the people that elect her.

In the end, facts did not decide this case; our fanatical preoccupation with race decided this case.

It does not take a Solomon to see what real justice should have looked like in this case; it takes people who apply the law and therefore justice as it was meant to be applied.