Notes from the Wayside: Perspective: A True Crime

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A True Crime

Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, "Let me take the speck out of your eye," while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor's eye.

Matthew 7:1-5 (NRSV)

No one knows what it's like

To be the bad man

To be the sad man

Behind blue eyes

From "Behind Blue Eyes" by The Who

Like many people, I was captivated the audiological phenomenon known as Serial, a podcast produced by public radio staple This American Life.¹ Late to the game, as usual, I didn't actually start listening to this podcast until a few months after the first season had ended. The first season tells the story of Adnan Syed, who was convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee sixteen years ago. Adnan has maintained his innocence ever since his conviction, and podcasts like Serial and Undisclosed² have shown that the jury that found him guilty was not presented with the pure, unadulterated facts.

If you're wondering about my own opinion about the case, I will say that, knowing what I know about the case, I do not think Adnan should have been found guilty.

I enjoy an occasional true crime story, but there is something that bothers me about such stories, particularly those that involve a possibly wrongful conviction. These stories give me the sense that sometimes investigators and prosecutors are less interested in actually uncovering the truth and more interested in building a compelling case against their suspect of choice. A number of years ago, I read John Grisham's The Innocent Man, which tells the true story of Ron Williamson, a former baseball player who was wrongfully convicted of murder. During his trial, the prosecution relied heavily on character witnesses, not to prove that he had actually committed the crime, but to convince the jury that he was the type of person who could have committed the crime.³

Of course, I don't think that these investigators and prosecutors are guilty of any fault we cannot find in the rest of the population. Consider some of the high-profile murder trials from the last couple of decades that captured the attention of the masses. Hardly anyone who followed these trials had any earth-shattering insights that could crack the case wide open, but many people who followed these trials had very strong opinions about the suspects. We say that suspects are "presumed innocent until proven guilty," but I don't think that principle is always reflected in people's attitudes.

I'm no sociologist, but I suspect that guilty verdicts might help people to feel more secure. It is unsettling to think that a violent criminal is on the loose, but a guilty verdict can reassure people that there is indeed order in the world, regardless of whether or not the person convicted actually committed the crime. As the FBI agent in the film National Treasure said to the protagonist, "Someone's gotta go to prison, Ben."⁴ Personally, I find it unsettling to imagine facing a wrongful conviction for no other reason than a lack of an ironclad alibi. Even if I was found not guilty in such a trial, I would still walk out of the courtroom as a pariah, for many people would have already made up their minds that I was the scum of the earth.

I think that something else might be going on beneath people's desire for retribution. In the past, I've written about my theory that people cope with their insecurities with the help of an "at-least" person. An "at-least" person is a person about whom one say, "At least I'm not that person." Another term for an "at-least" person is scapegoat. The term scapegoat finds its origin in the Hebrew Scriptures. Every year, on the Day of Atonement, the high priest would lay his hands on a living goat, symbolically transferring the guilt of the sins of the people onto the goat. Someone would then send the goat out into the wilderness, far away from the people.⁵ The term scapegoat has since come to refer to the one who bears the blame for someone else's sins.

I think that suspects, particularly those in high-profile criminal cases, function as people's personal scapegoats. Basically, if "scum of the earth" is a label we can pin on O.J. Simpson, Casey Anthony, or JonBenét Ramsey's parents, then we don't have to wear the label ourselves. If we can convince ourselves that other people are the cause of all the world's problems, then we don't have to take a good hard look in the mirror and face our own contributions. We set ourselves up as both judge and jury, convicting others so that we can exonerate ourselves.

The scapegoat is a sacrifice, the one who is killed, figuratively or literally, for the many, like the virgin thrown into the volcano to keep the angry fire gods from destroying the village.

In first-century Palestine, the Jewish leaders basically had an agreement with the Roman Empire: if the people didn't cause any trouble, the Empire would let them go about their lives. When Jesus entered the scene, many people began to believe that He was the long-awaited messiah who would defeat the Romans and restore Israel to its former glory. One of the Gospels tells us that after Jesus miraculously fed thousands of people, the people wanted to make Him king by force.⁶ As Jesus continued to perform such signs and wonders, the religious leaders became increasingly nervous.

At one meeting, some of the religious leaders voiced their concerns that Jesus' followers would rebel against Rome and that the Romans would retaliate by destroying the temple. The high priest said, "You know nothing at all! You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed."⁷ Thus Jesus became the people's scapegoat. He was eventually taken to court on trumped up charges and wrongly sentenced to death.

Scapegoating is a true crime. It is an unjust bandage we use to cover up our own problems and the problems of society. It doesn't solve any of the problems; it just keeps us from truly confronting them. To truly solve these problems, we need to rip off the bandage and face them directly, owning our own contributions to them. When one newspaper requested that its readers write in with their opinions about what is wrong with the world, thinker G.K. Chesterton responded with a two-word answer: "I am."⁸ May God give us the resolve to stop scapegoating other people and the courage to be honest with ourselves.

Notes: