Freedom
Thomas Jefferson Defined it in the "Declaration of The Rights of Man and The Citizen" as: "Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by law."
What is freedom? I was listening to a show on NPR about this very question, and they were interviewing a woman who had just been released from prison a few weeks ago. She had been convicted of possession with intent to distribute drugs and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. In her state, the mandatory minimum sentence that she had to serve was 5 years, before she was eligible for parole.
The interviewer asked her, did she consider what her freedom meant to her when she was selling drugs, before she was arrested, and her response was no – like so many people, she did not stop to think about what the consequences would be if she were caught, and she said that if she had considered it, it would not have mattered, because she felt that she was invincible at the time, that she was untouchable, that nothing bad could happen to her.
She said that as she stood before the judge in the courtroom, awaiting his decision as to what her sentence would be, then she considered what her freedom meant to her. But that moment was too late. She would not see her children, her family, her friends, the outside world, for at least 5 years of her life.
I think of the above quote from Thomas Jefferson, that “Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else,” and I wonder how this applies when a person’s freedom is taken from them for a victimless crime such as a drug offense. We forfeit our right to our freedom when we do things which unjustifiably harm those around us, but too many of our laws today are unjustified in terms of the harm done to others. Laws should be designed to protect us from each other, not from ourselves.
On the Fourth of July, we need to stop and consider the reasons why the Founding Fathers drafted the Declaration of Independence, and why we fought a bloody war to gain our independence from England. Most of the reasons are enshrined in our Constitution and its amendments, and they are central to the practice of criminal defense. Our freedoms that we fought for in 1776 we must continue to exercise and to fight for today, lest we lose them. They are:
The right to trial by a jury of our peers, the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures by government agents, and the right to have the government prove their case against us beyond any reasonable doubt before we can be found guilty of a criminal act and our personal freedom forfeited.
The right to speak freely, to criticize our government, to associate with whomever we want, to practice the religion of our choice, the right to bear arms (in part to remind our government of how we gained these freedoms in 1776), the right to due process of law, the right to a speedy trial when we are accused of a crime, the right to confront the witnesses against us, and the right to be free from cruel or unusual punishments.
The right to assistance of counsel. Happy Fourth of July.
The Declaration of Independence
The Amendments to the Constitution
