Darlie Routier: Inherent Flaws of the Justice System

No matter how the legal system takes care to be impartial, the biases of society affect the decisions of the judge and jury in a way that perpetuates prejudice. No event occurs in a vacuum, and especially not judicial and legal events. Based on evidence alone, it is hard to believe that Darlie Routier was the murderer of her two sons. That story critically lacks a witness and motive, meaning that there is basically no proof to the claim. But the prosecution won nonetheless based on their manipulation and slandering of Darlie’s character. The jury was made up of a conservative, poorer rural population, who were predisposed to bias against city people, the young and wealthy, and the seemingly materialistic. The prosecution convinced them thoroughly that Darlie was immoral, through factoids like her fake boobs, beauty, and non-religiousness. And as a woman, it was easy to be vilified for more or less anything, as Darlie was: persecuted for being too hysterical or not hysterical enough, too happy or too unhappy. She was portrayed as a gold-digging slut, who was vain and concerned with herself foremost. Culturally disliking her, the jury found it much easier to believe that she could have committed the murder, even without the necessary proof. Thus the trial was fatally skewed by people’s preconceived prejudices.

By preying on natural human fears, justice can be twisted to find a scapegoat. At first glance, this argument is fairly similar to the first, but I created it based on a different occurrence, that of community backlash to the murders. Darlie and her family were from a safe suburban community, where the police had never dealt with a murder before. Afterwards, people were afraid of some mysterious man coming into their homes. To alleviate their fear, they needed a target that wasn’t nameless, who could get locked up and put away easily: someone like Darlie. Because of the fears of the community, the police reacted similarly, wanting an identity for the perpetrator. The idea that the crime couldn’t be solved worked people into a scared frenzy. Darlie was the easiest target for police, who subconsciously looked toward clues of a familial conspiracy, and was subject to the biases that women receive. She was the perfect victim, and her capture resolved the tension in the community and around the open case.

Preconceived social prejudices and instinctual fear make a truly impartial judicial system impossible. Though America has this fantastic concept of democracy, checks and balances, all that nice stuff, much of that is reliant on the Enlightenment belief in human rationality. Which, as we all know, is not really how large groups of humans function, especially when they feel challenged or scared. We have created a country with an ideal justice system, but we are also the ones who have ruined the purity of that justice, just by nature of being human.