This excerpt is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.
A question at the center of our political moment is what happens when state power operates without meaningful accountability? We are living through a period of profound distrust in institutions, from courts to law enforcement to political leadership, and in today’s political climate, where arguments about “law and order” often crowd out conversations about fairness, it is worth asking who bears the cost of that momentum.
Below, I tell the story of Jannell, a Bronx public school employee charged with felony insurance fraud based largely on a mistaken date and a false prosecutorial theory. Her case was eventually dismissed. But it took years — and in the meantime she lost her job, her stability, and nearly her life.
In a time when debates about crime, public safety, and prosecutorial authority dominate headlines, Jannell’s story — excerpted from my new book The Price of Mercy: Unfair Trials, A Violent System, and a Public Defenders Search for Justice — shows how easily ordinary people can be swept into the machinery of accusation. Unfortunately, this is not a unique story of sensational miscarriage of justice, it reflects routine damage inflicted by a dysfunctional “justice” system. Jannell’s story is a reminder that the system’s reach is already vast and has profound collateral consequences, even if the defendant’s case is dismissed or if they are found not guilty.
