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The Cincinnati Beacon
Towards a Brave New Jail
Monday, April 16, 2007
Posted by Michael Earl Patton
There is a movement towards a new justice system in Hamilton County, one that is based on the premise that technology is a substitute for seeing things with our own eyes. It holds that contact with family members and community is not beneficial to the person arrested. Concrete walls should be used not only to keep the prisoner in, but to prevent contact with the family and community. This is a brave new concept in criminal justice.
The latest jail plan will avoid the inconvenience of having the prisoner brought before the judge for arraignment. Instead of pleading guilty or not guilty in person, or to have the bail set, the prisoner can stay within the jail. The court will use a video hook-up with the new jail and the prisoner can enter a plea without ever entering the courtroom. The prisoner will then avoid all contact with the public and family members. All that support which is inherent when others who care about you show up will be absent. The prisoner can just concentrate instead on the video image of the judge. And the judge and the public will not have the distraction of seing the whole person, the non-verbal “body language,” and the activity of the people holding him. They can just focus on the words “guilty, your Honor.”
Mutual eye-to-eye contact will be avoided. The prisoner, if he looked directly at the camera, couldn’t look directly at the judge’s image on the monitor. And if the prisoner looked directly at the judge’s image on the monitor, the judge wouldn’t be able to look at the prisoner in the eye from the courtroom monitor. Of course, the same thing would at the judge’s end, too, so it all cancels out. This eye-to-eye contact thing is over-rated, anyhow.
If the video link goes down for some reason during the proceedings the public will know that it will be re-established shortly and that, by definition, nothing of consequence will have happened during the time the link is interrupted. Or that nothing of consequence will be happening just off-camera. By definition.
Of course, there are problems to be worked out. Some may get out on bail before the formal arraignment. People with enough money to post bond and to have a private lawyer will probably still insist on seeing the judge in a courtroom. It does seem silly to make both of them go all the way to the jail just so they can have the same video link as those who could not afford bail. And public defenders, already over-worked, will probably have to spend more time at the jail meeting with their clients instead of in the courthouse. Or they could stay at the courthouse and trust that no one would be listening in on their conversations with their client. No one would, would they?
This technology promises to improve safety and lower costs. There can be no argument about the importance of lowering costs in the justice system. We have heard many times about the need for providing more jail spaces and how operating costs will go up as we increase the jail population. If cutting corners means more jail beds, then it is a net positive for Hamilton County. As for improving safety, it should be self-evident that the dangerous jaywalkers and pot-smokers are best kept locked up and should not be allowed near a judge if it can at all be helped.
In fact, these people belong in jail, which is the place for guilty people even if they haven’t yet been convicted. This will help the prisoners form the proper attitude towards their situation. The courtroom itself is a kind of neutral territory where by long tradition the guilt of the person is not presupposed and there are many visitors who themselves are presumed innocent. If the prisoners were brought into the courtroom itself, they might be more likely to plead not guilty.
So promising is this technology that it looks like at least some personal visits with the prisoners will be replaced by video visits. After all, there is already a glass partition between the prisoners and visitors now. The glowing video monitor would be basically the same effect, just not as high resolution and not from the same perspective. As with video arraignment, the positions of the camera and monitor would preclude any meaningful eye-to-eye contact. This may make the prisoner appear more shifty-eyed than normal, but being a criminal—even if not yet convicted—the visitors will surely accept this.
To find out more about this proposal I am sending the following letter to County Commissioner David Pepper:
Dear Mr. Pepper,
You have been talking about the “Hamilton County Comprehensive Safety Plan” and have passed out copies of a presentation dated March 15, 2007. On page 14, where it talks about “Appropriate and Sufficient Facilities,” it states that the county plans to “use video arraignment and visitation technology to improve safety and lower costs.” Such use is spreading rapidly in the country, although there have been some voices of concerned raised. Some in particular point out that the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution has traditionally been interpreted to mean that the defendant has the right to be present at arraignment and all critical parts of any trial. These people argue that a video image is not the same as being present in the courtroom.
So I would like to know more about this proposal. Will it be for those accused of felonies as well as those accused of misdemeanors? How will lawyers consult with their clients? Will video arraignment be the standard for all, or will some still be able to arrange in-person court appearances? Will video arraigment be just for the initial appearance after arrest, or will it also be for any later arraignment proceedings? And, will visitors always have the option of in-person visits?
Thank you for your attention to these questions.
Michael Earl Patton
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