Free and Uneasy: Vindicated by DNA, but a Lost Man on the Outside
Having walked out of the Westchester County Courthouse vindicated yet petrified of the unpredictable tomorrows ahead, [Jeffrey Mark] Deskovic found that his first year on the outside was more turbulent than triumphant. Still trying to recover what was stolen from him, he is, at 34, a free man who has yet to feel truly free.
Jeffrey Mark Deskovic has every right to feel as if he’s been treated unfairly. If ever anyone could be forgiven for being angry and bitter, it would be Deskovic. After becoming the victim of a state apparatus more interested in putting people away than securing justice, where does Deskovic go to get the 16 years of his life back that the state of New York robbed him of? Who’s going to compensate him for the time he’s lost, the opoportunities missed, and the reputation that’s been ruined? Sure, there may be some sort of minimal compensation paid for the “Oops…my bad!”, but who’s going to pay for taking 16 years of Deskovic’ life from him?
Where does Deskovic go to get his family back? Reconnect with relatives? Or to simply reclaim his peace of mind and sense of security? What if DNA evidence wasn’t the reliable resource it’s become? And how many others are share Deskovic’ situation? More than you might realize.
No reasonable person could ever expect perfection from any criminal justice system. Yes, perfection is a reasonable and worthy goal, but in a system created and administered by [sometimes corrupt, ignorant, and self-interested] human beings, imperfections will exist. When it comes to the life of an innocent person, there is no “acceptable” number when it comes to a margin or error in criminal cases. That being said, how we as a society deal with our errors says a lot about our sense of decency and fair play. The reality is that most of society seems to operate under a “Too bad…so sad…quit your whining and get on with your life” attitude which only serves to demonstrate how little that we care about the mistakes that are made in our name.
“Justice for all” is a wonderful concept and a laudable goal, but until we devote significant resources to those wrongfully convicted, it will remain only a concept. If an individual is wrongly convicted of a crime, he or she has every right to expect that soceity will bend over backwards to assist in recovering what was lost. Jeffrey Mark Deskovic deserves better than to be merely a footnote in a long-running story of ineptitude and error. The tragedy is that Deskovic is by no means alone.
Indeed, where does one go to get 16 years of their life back?
