The case presented in the documentary “Murder on a Sunday Morning” is a classic example of the inadequacies of the American criminal justice system. In this incident an African-American teen was arrested for the murder and armed robbery of a white tourist in Jacksonville based upon the eye-witness account of the tourist’s husband. The teen was subsequently denied the right to make his phone call or contact an attorney, interrogated for an inordinate amount of time, threatened, racially slurred, struck several times, and forced to sign a false confession admitting to having committed the crime. While one can speculate that these injustices were the result of a few immoral police officers, there are many subtle factors that could have contributed to the result of this incident and others like it all over America.

The home of the accused was roughly one mile from the site of the murder, and it was likely that police were searching the area for local residents matching the description given by the witness. It is well known that lower class urban areas such as this often have higher crime rates and are home to many criminals as well. This may have affected the suspicions of the investigating police officers. Also the fact that the suspect police were searching for was African-American was likely a determining factor in the boy’s arrest. Despite what many may think, it was not likely that these officers were prejudiced against black people because many such incidents of false accusation occur throughout America and it is unlikely that there are that many racist members of law enforcement. Statistically speaking African-Americans have more encounters with the law and are incarcerated more often than members of other ethnic groups. Whether this is due to the fact that more African-Americans commit crimes or police officers are by-and-large more suspicious of them is still open to debate. It is also known that members of one ethnicity often have difficulty discerning between members of another ethnicity. This may have influenced the witness, who was white, in his ability to identify the killer, resulting in his mistake.

On a side-note the witness was likely “primed” to identify the boy as the killer because the kid was already in the back of a police car at the time. This was coupled with the traumatic events the witness had just undergone, which would’ve understandably unsettled his judgment. The criminal justice system relies heavily on eye witnesses for the prosecution of the accused. In several scientific studies it was found that witnesses were rarely accurate in their descriptions of their assailants, and were only able to identify them roughly more than half the time. This is a major problem with the criminal justice system as many innocent people have been sent to jail based upon the recounts of just such a witness. If the police involved had conducted their investigation properly, it is likely that the accused would’ve been found guilty in this situation based upon the witness’s recount. Conversely, if forensic science is more frequently employed over the use of witnesses its possible that such mistakes will occur less often. The downsides to this method are the cost of these forensic processes and the fact that such scientific data will often confuse a deciding jury.

The prosecutor and the defendant played a major part in this case, and presumably would in other similar instances. The court appointed defender was dedicated and very skilled, the sole reason that the young man was found not guilty. It is unfortunate that many court appointed defenders are not so competent. In this way the system puts those who cannot afford private representation at a severe disadvantage. If the weight of evidence suggested the boy was innocent, as it did in this case, most prosecuting attorneys would take the opportunity to make a movement of dismissal. In effect they acknowledge that the defendant is probably innocent. This did not occur because of the allegations the defender made that his client had been beaten and forced to sign a confession. In such situations where the conduct or “honor” of law enforcement is brought into question, the state prosecutor’s office will often order the prosecutor to see the trial through to the end in order to help save face. In this way the conviction of an innocent is used by the system to maintain their pride.

The next question to ask is why the police made no attempt to look for any other possible suspects, and why he was treated so brutally. In order to answer this one must look at the situation from the point of view of the arresting officers. The person who was killed was a tourist. In Florida tourism is a major industry and the source of a lot of revenue. As such it people who depend on that revenue would want to preserve the safe, family oriented image that the area has established. Any threat to that revenue would be dealt with as quickly and as harshly as possible. The media had already been made aware of the murder and had begun to report on it. To counter this threat the police had to come up with a suspect. Not necessarily the killer, but someone approximating the description in order to placate the media. This young man just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Also police work is grueling in the extreme. The officer’s are often in mortal danger, they are required to follow many different rules and regulations, and there is a great pressure from their superiors to clear as many cases as quickly as possible. Law enforcement considers a case cleared when an arrest has been made, and will consider it to be done whether or not the arrested party truly did commit the crime. This may have pressured them into acting prematurely and not following up on their investigation because, according to their witness, the killer had been caught. Though this does not excuse them of their duties or the errors they had made, it does go in some way to explain how this sort of problem can occur.

As much as I would like to hazard a guess, I cannot begin to explain why the police officers involved struck the suspect and forced him to sign a false confession. It is likely that unless the police officers decide to confess, we will never know their motives. There is one point I’d like to make which, while not necessarily true in all such cases, was likely true in this one. The investigator that actually struck the suspect and called him a “nigger” was the son of the county sheriff. It’s possible that because he had such connections he felt he would be able to act without fear of retribution. Though we don’t like to admit it, nepotism is alive and well. If the other officers were aware of what happened, which they most likely were after seeing the boy’s bruised and swollen face, they may have gotten the idea that they were more free to take such liberties with the prisoner. This could be a tentative explanation as to why the police officers felt they could get away with writing a false confession and intimidating the kid into signing it.

Though I have done the best job of explaining how such a thing can happen in our society as I am able, the fact is that there are still many unanswered questions. If we already knew what all the causes of such situations were, then we’d have made the appropriate alterations to the criminal justice system to compensate for them by now.