DUE PROCESS

Office-seekers running `tough-on-crime' campaigns should be careful.

Politicians who publicly dare to raise questions about the fairness of the
criminal justice system, particularly in the context of capital punishment,
are often labeled as soft-on-crime liberals.

In Texas, a state in which voters have steadily moved right of center,
that's the kiss of political death. Hence the thundering silence emanating
from Republican quarters in the Lone Star State as calls for a moratorium
on the death penalty intensify in other parts of the country.

Yet legislators aren't the only ones who run on campaign platforms that
include tough-on-crime mantras. In a state that elects its judiciary, so do
judges.

Therein lies a problem with the criminal justice system.

At its most basic, criminal law is not that difficult. It all starts with a
sense of fundamental fairness. "Due process" is about the accused being
guaranteed a fair trial in front of a jury of peers. The victims' interests
are represented by the state, which prosecutes on their behalf.

When it comes to who is sitting on the bench, left or right, conservative
or liberal should be moot in any discussion. The judge's job is to follow
the due process dictates of the Constitution and act as a balance between
the rights of the accused and the rights of citizens to be free from
criminal acts.

It's all right there, tidily summed up in the Fifth and Sixth amendments:

* No person "shall be compelled in a criminal case to be a witness against
himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process
of law."

* "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a
speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State . . . and to be
informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with
the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining
witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defence."

As tough as this is to read, especially for the victims of crime, due
process of law is about the rights of the accused. Nowhere in the
Constitution does the word `victim' appear.

That is not to say that the victims' interests aren't represented. The
state acts on their behalf inside the courtroom. Outside, the media often
bring sharp focus on how the crime affected the victims.

The frustration exhibited by a recent letter writer was evident: "Criminals
have more rights than we do," the man wrote.

But citizens need to think long and hard about what kind of societies don't
afford rights to the accused. They are oppressive places where innocent
people are jailed on bogus charges. They are countries where speaking out
against the government, or even openly practicing one's religion, can bring
a prison sentence.

True conservatives -- those people committed to the Founding Fathers'
vision of a just society ruled by law -- should never be afraid to raise
questions about the fairness of the criminal justice system.

True conservatives should be insulted by the thought of a justice system
that is even remotely perceived as putting process above substance, a
system that allows a person to remain in prison to protect the sanctity of
an earlier court decision even though technology exists to reveal answers
that were previously untapped in scientific evidence.

True conservatives accept that any system administered by humans is bound
to include mistakes that must be acknowledged and corrected.

Citizens must remember that the American criminal justice system is about
guaranteeing that the accused receives due process. Judges who tout
themselves as being tough on crime need to go back and read the Constitution.