In the week since 27-year-old Bryan Groene pleaded no contest to attempted first-degree assault in Platte County District Court our legal system -- judges and prosecutors -- has been second-guessed and berated.
Worse are speculations that the victim, Randall Scott Michalak, 22, was somehow deserving of what happened to him outside an 11th Street bar Aug. 10, 2007.
The one absolutely clear fact is that no one deserves to end up blind and otherwise impaired as Michalak now is. Only an extremely distorted street justice view could allow this conclusion.
One oft-stated view of our judicial system is that it would be better for a million guilty men to go free than to imprison one innocent one. This is the black and white standard that our justice system is built upon.
But in the tangled web that preceded Mr. Groene’s day in court, Platte County Prosecutor Andrea Belgau apparently encountered much that was gray, hazy, perhaps even contradictory.
We fear too many people want simple, unforgiving Old Testament-style justice -- an eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth outcome.
The justice system we have in America is based upon proving “beyond a reasonable doubt” that someone is guilty. The public, unfortunately, has come to expect nice tidy scenarios along the lines of the “Law and Order” or “CSI” television shows that wrap everything up in a neat package in less than 60 minutes.
Reality dictates otherwise.
Witnesses stories might not match up. Physical evidence might be lacking. A victim, while a sympathetic figure, might be enmeshed in a larger, more complex picture that would come into a jury’s view during a trial.
All of these elements combine to lead Ms. Belgau and other prosecutors to weigh what they are confident they can prove beyond a reasonable doubt against the vagaries of what a jury of an accused’s peers might perceive or a judge might rule.
The accused must weigh his knowledge of the crime against what he thinks that same judge or jury might believe.
The complex confluence of facts, law, intuition and believability result in plea bargains that might seem inadequate to outside observers. Indeed, if all facts were fully evident, the outcomes might be different, but all facts are seldom if ever known.
What we, the observing public, must realize is that a plea bargain means the accused has, to some extent, taken responsibility for his acts and accepted the fact that a judge will mete out punishment.
Victims and their families also are advised and consulted in plea bargain cases.
Finally, we are confident that neither Ms. Belgau nor her peers accept or propose a plea bargain as a matter of expediency.
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