Summary killings are a crime regardess of who does it.

A free society regardless if it is a Federalist or Democratic cannot allow elected officials or their agents to perpetuate violence upon people they suspect of committing a crime. If we do we eventually will have to look over our shoulders to see if we are being watched. Politicians are eager to capitalize on our fears.

It is becoming more common for police and elected officials to see themselves as judge and jury dispensing inappropriate summary justice on the streets. It is also becoming more common for citizens to look the other way because they fear crime taking over their community. The Constitution does not allow those who are there to enforce the law to be put in the position of becoming judge and jury.

Politicians are supposed to make the laws, police officers are supposed to enforce the laws and the judiciary is supposed to determine what happens when evidence is presented to them of lawbreaking. This separation has become blurred over the last few years as more and more politicians are winning elections playing on the fears of the citizens, but citizens need to understand we will eventually lose our freedom if we allow this to continue. Americans or citizens of any country must never sacrifice their liberty for false security.

Politicians will claim that the reason they act as they do is because the judicial system is flawed and criminals are not being convicted. That is not justification to ignore the constitution and laws. Politicians should be taking action to reform the judicial system not become judge, jury and executor of suspected criminals. When politicians and police become judge, jury and executor they also become criminals.

I am not sure killing drug dealers without giving them an opportunity to have their day in court or offering any rehabilitation programs or adequate rehabilitation programs is a humane process. This subject is very personal to me and I realize my views may be influenced by personal family experiences. My brother who died in 2004 of cancer in the ninth grade started smoking marijuana. He did use and sell marijuana to friends to supply his needs. He could have been a victim of summary street justice. He was fortunate that he received a trial and spent time in prison. He got out opened a business and became quite successful, married and raised a family. I just do not think any elected official or police officer would have been justified of robbing him of his life.

I do not accept the end justifies the means. I do not accept short cutting the legal procedure as a valid solution to crime. I do accept and whole heartily believe those involved in summary killing are criminals themselves and should be tried in the judicial system they flaunt. Their sentence should be severe since they are suppose to be role models for regular citizens.  

I realize a lot of citizens disagree with me.

We know that some who have been sentence to death for crimes were eventually found to be innocent. Mistakes are made even when the accused is given a 'fair' trial. How many suspected criminals killed by summary killers were innocent and they were denied a 'fair' trial.

What is the difference in Martial Law and summary killings? Both deny suspects of their international human rights. Politicians involved in or who encourage summary killing cannot guarantee laws will apply equally to all.

A society that does not demand that their police officers who shoot without legal justification face conviction are condoning summary killing. A policeman recently shot a young man in Chicago 16 times killing him. The young man is said to have had a knife in each hand while walking down the street. It took one year before the Chicago elected officials brought charges against the policeman and they only did so after pressure from the black community was put on them. How can any society justify 16 shots by one policeman in one victim?

The 6th Amendment states: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed…” The right to a jury trial was designed by our founders to be a fundamental right bestowed upon our citizens and a means to keep the government under control of the people.

When a defendant exercises his right to a jury trial, it is the jury of his peers that decides whether the defendant is guilty or not. In these circumstances a great deal of control is relinquished by the government and put into the hands of the citizens.

The right to trial by jury takes the control of the outcome of a criminal case away from the government and gives it to the citizens. This right, though it has its limitations, is essential in maintaining liberty and imposing restraint on the government.

Let us not forget the summary killings in the South perpetrated by the KKK. The membership of KKK consisted of a lot of Southern policemen and politicians. They were self-appointed vigilantes who regarded themselves as both outside and above the law when they perpetrated their crimes. Do we want to return to those days?

The KKK did largely bring their barbaric justice to the black communities in the south, but blacks were not the only ones lynched by the KKK. They lynched Jews, foreigners, rapist (black or white), northerners, wife beaters (black and white), Catholics, homosexuals, communists and thief’s (black and white). I am sure today drug dealers and drug users would be their victims. They were white men, consisting of a lot of politicians, that thought they knew best how to deal with society’s problems. Their illegal actions were accepted by the citizens out of fear of the blacks which then became fear of any and all suspected law breakers or people they disagreed with in general.

At an early age I was introduced to public officials acting as judge, jury and executors. I was twelve and went to spend the summer with relatives in Alabama. My cousin by marriage was the sheriff. One Saturday night his son and I were allowed to ride with him in the patrol car.  He arrested a young black man for “standing” on the corner in the downtown area at night. He put the young man in the back of his patrol car under the pretense of carrying him to jail.

On the way to the jail we stopped for coffee at the local café. He opened the back door of the patrol car and he told the Blackman to stay in the car while he drank coffee. The car door was left opened.  I kept watching the man from the café window and later I realized my cousin was watching to. I finally had the courage to ask what if he gets out of the car and runs away. His reply came with a hardy laugh, “I hope the ‘nigger’ is that stupid then I will shoot him and we do not have to take him to jail.” The young man was smart enough not to run and he was turned lose in the café parking lot. A few years later he was returning for the summer from college in Tuskegee and got off the bus on the highway and was taken by the KKK and lynched.  That is what they did to 'uppity niggers' that went to college. I have never forgotten that and have since had a real distaste for injustice regardless of who inflicts it - bullies, police officer, politicians, judges, religious leaders or citizens.