The Weight of Injustice
Better to let 1,000 guilty go free than to condemn one innocent
I just finished watching the first season of a Netflix show called "The Lincoln Lawyer." I really enjoyed it and even bought the first book (that the show is based on) for my Kindle. This short and light courtroom drama inspired me with its upbeat, productive protagonist. One of the core tensions of the show is that our protagonist, Mickey Haller, is a defense attorney. From the perspective of several characters, including Mickey's ex-wife who is a state prosecutor, Mickey helps bad guys get away.
The response to this logic is, of course, to refocus on the horror of an innocent person being wrongly convicted for a crime they did not commit (which the show does with its Hernandez character). Everyone deserves a strong defense, lest justice becomes injustice through severity and error.
There are degrees of injustices. We are bothered when we hear a story about someone who committed a wrong–whether that wrong was a murder or simply cutting to the front of the line–then somehow gets away with it. However, we are far more bothered, scandalized, and hurt when an innocent person is wrongly accused of something they did not do. My wife, Leila, still vividly remembers when she accidentally stepped on the back of her 2nd-grade teacher's shoe when following her in line. The teacher turned around and angrily accused her of doing it on purpose. This tiny error in judgment on the teacher's part left an unforgettable memory of hurt in Leila's little 2nd-grade brain. It is clear that an innocent person being punished for something they did not do is a far greater injustice than someone escaping a deserved punishment.
The line from Netflix's "The Lincoln Lawyer" is "better a thousand guilty go free than one innocent be wrongly condemned." My favorite scene from the show comes after our hero Mickey shows that his client was wrongly condemned in a previous trial. As Mickey proves his client's innocence, the judge becomes furious. He calls the lawyers up to the sidebar and angrily tells them that he himself had previously sentenced this man to 15 years in prison and "if there is anything wrong with that sentence then we will get to the bottom of it right now!" His anger is righteous anger at the thought that such a grievous error could have been made in his court.
Interestingly, this weighting of injustices comes into play within the biblical message of redemption. In watching the show, my thoughts were brought to the greatest injustice of all time. Christ's condemnation and death on the cross was an infinitely unjust punishment because he, unlike every other wrongly condemned person, was truly and completely innocent of any and all crimes. He was sinless. Yet, he was condemned as a criminal and put to death. The weight of that unjust act is so great that it allows God the Father to accept Jesus's sacrifice of atonement in our place.* On the scales of justice, the death of one innocent God-man outweighs every sin you or I or the entire people of the church have ever committed or will ever commit.
This line of thought leads me to two conclusions:
One is the realization of how foolish it is to think that we are too sinful for God to forgive us. We have the person of Christ as our advocate, the blood of Christ as our propitiation. The arrogance to think that your sins outweigh that blood is extreme.
I also thought of how impractical this entire scheme is. The quote "better a thousand guilty go free than one innocent be wrongly condemned" may be true morally, but it is far from true practically. Imagine a society where this actually happened. Say you lived in a village of 10,000 people, and you just let 1,000 guilty go free. The people of that society would be so desperate to get a handle on lawlessness that they would be willing to sacrifice the one innocent. In fact, this greater good logic is easy to do.
More could be said here, but my second conclusion is that Christian ethics and practicality are not always aligned. This is something we American capitalists have to be reminded of. Righteousness and efficiency do not mirror each other well.
*To be clear, Christ's murder is an injustice on the part of those who did it. There is, however, no injustice on God's part. He ordained it to happen the same way he ordains everything that happens and there is no injustice in him (WSC #7). Furthermore, through Christ's resurrection and exaltation, God the Father vindicates Christ and glorifies him for his act of self-giving sacrifice. Mishandeling this tension is at the heart of Arminianism.
*WSC Q. 7. What are the decrees of God? A. The decrees of God are his eternal purpose, according to the counsel of his will, whereby, for his own glory, he has foreordained whatsoever comes to pass.
Really enjoyed this, Micah - fascinating take on that moral intuition.