Writers Pamela Colloff and Charles Graeber expound on two men in two distinct parts of the world due to the justice system they are imprisoned for affirmed crimes and are viewed as "innocent until proven guilty." Pamela Colloff's "The Innocent Man" is about a man named Michael Morton who was indicted of killing his wife, while Graeber's "Mega" is about an Internet Mogul blamed for digital wrongdoings in a foreign country. Both essays introduce a common perspective of the justice system by joining different nonfiction elements and effectively using them to discuss their essays: through characterization, creative journalism, and theme.
Colloff effectively conveys the theme of miscarriage of justice in her article because she employs characterization, creative journalism, and theme in her writing. According to the Innocence Project, “the common causes of wrongful conviction are eyewitness misidentification, false confessions, government misconduct, improper forensic evidence, informants, and inadequate defense” (Huff 86). The writer details this in the nonfiction form of characterization while presenting the sheriff who captured Michael, Williamson County Sheriff Jim Boutwell. “Boutwell also played by his own rules, a tendency that had, in one notorious case, resulted in a botched investigation whose flawed conclusions reverberated through the cold-case files of police departments across the country. In 1983, three years before Christine’s murder, Boutwell coaxed a confession from Henry Lee Lucas, a one-eyed drifter who would, within a year’s time, be considered the most prolific serial killer in American history” (Graebar 74). Colloff presents Sheriff Boutwell as a pensive person who only abides to his rules to show the way how the justice system can be sometimes, where law enforcement can make their own rules on how they should handle crime. The writer likewise infers the creative journalism element of nonfiction while presenting to the readers what the neighbors saw. “The St. Martins had also contacted the sheriff’s office about a suspicious van. However, the sheriff never followed up on the lead, in fact, what little physical evidence had been recovered from the crime scene pointed away from Michael. Fingerprints lifted from the doorframe of the sliding-glass door in the dining area did not match anyone in the Morton household. All told, there were approximately fifteen fingerprints found at the house—including one lifted from the blue suitcase that was left on top of Christine’s body—but they were never identified” (Colloff 80). Michael Morton was wrongfully indicted. Subsequently, he was condemned to life in jail and isolated from his only child from his now murdered spouse. In the wake of putting in more than 25 years in jail, he was finally excused on grounds of actual innocence.
Graeber successfully passes on the theme of miscarriage of justice in his article because he utilizes characterization, creative journalism, and theme in his writing to express how corrupt the justice system is. In “Mega”, the reader learns about Kim Dotcom, who’s the key player in Operation Takedown, an operation initiated by the U.S. Department of Justice for violating anti-racketeering laws and copyright infringement (Graeber). The essay opens with Kim Dotcom’s mansion in New Zealand being raided by armed New Zealand police and monitored by the FBI via video link. The author also uses the nonfiction element, creative journalism, by describing what was happening to Kim to the reader during the house raid. Kim had infringed upon a few laws by hacking into others databases which is obviously unlawful under a law tending to the harmony between the privileges of copyright holders and internet service providers were signed by President Clinton in 1998. The author exposes this by stating, “He loved crawling through a new company’s data, paying special attention to outgoing modem calls, which would lead him to even more PBXs. Kim wrote a little script and set it running at night, dialing up numbers, jiggling the knobs of the back doors; the next day he’d have access to 800 accounts, complete with usernames and passwords. He was building an army” (Graebar 372). Just like Michael Morton, Dotcom is being accused of criminal activity that he did not do, yet law enforcement still convicted him as guilty without a trial being held. These two examples of miscarriage of justice shows how the justice system is corrupt because of the way they handle crimes based on what they think is right or wrong, instead of following the official procedures.
Obviously, Kim has perpetrated a crime, he's been battling removal from New Zealand to the U.S. since 2012. However in Pamela Colloff's "The Innocent Man," Michael Morton was innocent from the beginning and was still found guilty and later absolved, similar to "justice." They don't consider it to be any kind of due process infringement since they've effectively decided that the person is guilty in their minds, similarly as the U.S. government has in both of these cases. However, that isn't how due process works. A person is supposed to be found guilty first and then imprisoned, not the other way around. If these individuals are sure that Michael Morton was guilty in back then, and Dotcom is guilty now, why not wait until that's shown in a court of law, however the U.S. is by all accounts great at locking individuals up, guilty or not.