If I Wasn’t a Writer I Would be a Criminal Lawyer

I would do the job properly and I would do it for free

This challenge was made within the ILLUMINATION publication and I was called out by Timothy Key. The original prompt was created and put forth by Sherry McGuinn.

When I was a teenager I had some pretty grand ideas of what I wanted to be when I grew up. One of my most favorable choices was a journalist which, in hindsight, should have been the clear choice.

The other was a criminal lawyer. I think plenty of young people aspire toward being lawyers and doctors. But I had my heart set on criminal law for a good while.

I can’t be sure when I changed my mind, because internet and mainstream crime TV shows weren’t influences yet back then, but somehow I remember finding out that criminal lawyers have to defend guilty people.

That sealed the deal for me. How could I ever wish to defend someone who is guilty and keep a clean conscience? I decided against criminal law and never thought about it again.

Fast forward to adult life and I’ve never become professional at anything except for being a flight risk. I opted to travel. A LOT.

But for well over a decade, looming in the background of my carefree travel lifestyle, my family has had to deal directly with the law on a constant basis. Extenuating circumstances plopped us directly into the middle of having to consistently deal with police, legal services, and the prison system for many years.

It is only now that I really wish had gone the lawyer route. It’s also only now that I wish I’d had the same life experience back when I was a teenager, in order to become as passionate about law as I am now. I would have been so much better equipped later in life.

The system that keeps failing humans

It’s no secret that the justice system as a whole, infuriates me. I’ve written about it on numerous occasions because I have inside experience with how it consistently fails the people caught up in the system.

I have a family member who has been victim to police brutality that was covered up and lied about by police. He has also been in custody for many years because of problems that stem from mental illness and addiction, which led to crime.

He has been overdosed by prison medical staff, which became the subject of a lawsuit that he subsequently won. He was also subjected to prolonged solitary confinement, which eventually ended up being taken to the supreme court of Canada.

In recent years I have also become privy to the justice system in America, through documentaries presented mainly by Netflix.

Not to minimize the experiences of my own family member caught up in the Canadian system, but what I have learned about American justice — or should I say, LACK of justice— absolutely floors me.

There are literally no words to describe the angst, sadness, and outrage I feel knowing how many innocent citizens are locked up due to lack of investigation, evidence, and downright absence of human decency.

I watch the documentaries out of pure human interest and they leave me in a blank and numb state of mind. Until recently, I was up to date on the Netflix catalog of crime and justice shows, and had recapped my sentiments in a previously written article.

More recently, I binged on The Innocence Files. It’s a docu-series about wrongfully convicted citizens who serve a significant portion of their lives in prison before being helped by an organization called The Innocence Project.

Never before have I felt so compelled to want to help people. Never before have I wished I’d gone into law back then so I could actually do something besides donate money to a cause. That feels so passive.

Take Chester Hollman of Pennsylvania for example. He spent 28 whole years in prison for murder, as an innocent man. He was convicted on false and coerced eye-witness testimony, and zero evidence, as so many others in this series were.

All because the prosecution needed to pin it on someone and they were too lazy to do the work.

Many of these wrongfully convicted people never receive compensation for their lives lost behind bars. It’s disgusting, cruel, and unjust.

If I could be an attorney now

I’m now at a stage in my life where I have no one to be responsible for except myself. I have a big mouth, a huge amount of compassion, and very little regard for terrible humans.

I also have nothing to lose.

If I could be an attorney now I would jump on all the bandwagons of those fighting for the innocent. I would have no problem going out of my way to humiliate those responsible for these shabby convictions.

I would have zero issues with exposing the sub-humans of the justice system and fighting relentlessly for the ones who suffer as a result.

It is confusing to me how everyday people who choose law as their career can be so corrupt. Were they awful humans before they chose their paths? How is it that so many currently are terrible humans? I wonder how they sleep at night knowing (because they do know) that they’ve put the wrong person behind bars?

It stumps me that there are only a handful of professionals within the justice system that have compassion and seek the truth, regardless of how much they are or aren’t getting paid. It is mind blowing.

If I were an attorney now I’d either have started my own innocence project or I’d be piggybacking off the ones that currently exist. I wouldn’t do it for the money, I would do it simply because it’s the right thing to do.

As a teenager who considered a career in criminal law, I wasn’t able to realize both sides of the coin. It isn’t only about having to defend the guilty, sometimes it’s about vindicating the innocent.

The thought of being able to change someone’s life through the truth and real justice, lights my soul on fire.

Check out another of my pieces on justice and prison:

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