Due Process Matters Because We Don't Want to Punish Innocent People

The Trump administration is increasingly hostile to a foundation of American justice. Here's why that matters.

Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash

When I was growing up outside Atlanta in the 1990s, one of the biggest criminal scandals playing out in the local media was the aftermath of the Centennial Olympic Park bombings in 1996.

A security guard named Richard Jewell was initially touted as a hero in the affair — he had helped people get away from the set of pipe bombs, which ended up injuring dozens and killing two people.

But Jewell soon became a suspect himself in the eyes of the media. Although the FBI and authorities did investigate Jewell as part of their search for the bomber, he was never charged with anything. That didn’t stop news outlets from obsessively suggesting that he may have played a role in the attack in order to hold himself out as a hero.

Eventually, the authorities stepped forward and made clear that Jewell was not considered a suspect. A man named Eric Rudolph was eventually convicted for the bombing and other bombings he had committed in the name of protesting legal abortion.

The damage, unfortunately, was done. Jewell’s life was turned upside down thanks to a media-driven witch hunt that never had any basis in truth.

The silver lining was that before his death in 2007 he was able to win libel suits against a range of media outlets who had suggested, without any evidence, that he was responsible for the Olympic bombing. He later said that the reason he sued these publications was not for financial gain but to clear his name.

What the media denied Jewell all those years was due process; it was only thanks to the courts, which were able to hold the outlets who had libeled him accountable, that he was able to win any justice at all.

Photo by Stephen Cook on Unsplash

I think about Jewell’s case when I see the Trump administration and its allies on the right arguing that they should be able to deport people without any due process at all.

Over the weekend, the administration’s border czar Tom Homan was asked during an ABC News interview about reports that people have been wrongly accused of being part of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua or the Salvadoran gang MS-13 before being deported.

“Due process? Where was Laken Riley’s due process?” Homan replied, referring to the Georgia woman who was murdered by an unauthorized immigrant.

Let’s think about what Homan is saying here. If criminals fail to follow the law, does that mean the government shouldn’t follow the law either?

The purpose of due process is to make sure the government doesn’t punish innocent people. The way it works is that when the government makes an accusation against someone, that person is then allowed a court process where they can defend themselves. The purpose of this process is to make sure that the government can prove its case against someone before punishing them.

Fox News host Brian Kilmeade went further in making this argument on Monday:

I also think it’s not practical to think that we can do due process on 8 million people….If we’re going to give every [one of] these guys a day in court and a lawyer, we can’t do it. They don’t deserve it.

Of course, there are costs associated with court processes. Former President George W. Bush once acknowledged how liberal democracy can be inefficient: “If this were a dictatorship, this would be a heck of a lot easier. Just so long as I’m the dictator!”

But the cost of the government not being forced to prove its case before punishing people is that you end up punishing innocent people. There’s reporting out there that suggests the administration may be deporting people on the basis that they have football tattoos; the tattoos are alleged to be tied to the Venezuelan gang mentioned above.

Almost all Americans would say we don’t want violent criminals entering and residing in our country illegally. But did people really vote for Trump so that he would deport people based on mere suspicion without having to prove that the people being deported actually are violent criminals?

I’m sure there are people out there who will roll their eyes and say mutter some kind of phrase like “you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.” Maybe some people just want to rid the country of foreign-born people altogether.

But this kind of lazy psychopathy — you just know people saying things like this put more thought into their McFlurry order at McDonald’s than they do possibly sending someone to be tortured in El Salvador — does not correspond with key American values.

And you’d better believe that if the administration can get away with these abuses against legal residents who happen to be immigrants, it’s only a matter of time before this logic is extended to legal residents who happen to be citizens.