A Law Enforcement Contradiction

On October 12, 2004 four Metro D.C. Police and four FBI agents showed up at my door.  The police had been called in alarm by an employer who had received a job application from me.  At that time I was sending out job applications that summarized concerns that I was potentially violent: concerns that arose during my employment at the D.C. law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer and Feld, where I worked as a paralegal from 1988 to 1991.

A D.C. Police detective spoke with me.  He asked me why I was advising prospective employers about concerns that I was potentially violent and homicidal when those concerns had arisen nearly twenty years earlier.  I said: "Well, that's what people said about me.  They said I was potentially violent and homicidal."  The detective said: "But that was nearly twenty years ago!"

I find the detective's response curious.  It seems that when the government wants to discount facts about a person's potential for violence because those facts, if reported to prospective employers, might present an annoyance or inconvenience to law enforcement, the government will dismiss those concerns, arguing that the passage of time alone has somehow altered the individual's fundamental character.

Yet, when the government wants to invoke a person's past record, it will do so vigorously, despite the passage of time.  I am reminded of the case of John Hinckley.  John Hinckley tried to assassinate President Reagan in March 1981; that's nearly thirty years ago.  John Hinckley has been housed in St. Elizabeths Hospital since a jury found him not guilty by reason of insanity.  Periodically, John Hinckley petitions the court to grant him extended leave from his confinement or even permanant release from St. Elizabeths.  Every time John Hinckley petitions the government for freedom, the U.S. Department of Justice vigorously protests Hinckley's motions.  If it were up to the Justice Department, John Hinckley would be locked up in St. Elizabeths Hospital, without leave, for the rest of his natural life -- despite the fact that Hinckley's violent acts took place nearly thirty years ago and despite the fact that Hinckley's treating mental health professionals have testified that he no longer suffers from psychotic mental illness.

When it's inconvenient for the governement to have to face the conequences of a determination that someone was potentially violent and homicidal it will readily dismiss the current relevance of those past concerns.  When the government wants to keep someone confined, it will just as readily argue that the passage of time -- and changed circumstances -- are irrrelevant.

Those are just the thoughts of a person diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.