Watching the Guilty Go Free

The injustice that’s baked into our legal system.

Some people who read my book SUBMERGED who have no doubt Jason Tibbs was wrongfully convicted for the murder of Rayna Rison ask if he should turn to the governor for a pardon or commutation of his sentence. This sort of intervention in our justice system is the equivalent of the Deus Ex Machina, a device in Greek tragedies where ancient playwrights literally lowered a god figure from the rafters to resolve a crisis that had no other solution.

As stated in other posts, Jason will never take a guilty plea in exchange for a pardon. Clearing his name is more important to him than his freedom. Moreover, exactly this sort of Deus Ex Machina led to Jason’s trial. Despite a grand jury indictment and considerable evidence collected over five years, the La Porte County Prosecuting Attorney Robert Beckman dropped the murder charges against Ray McCarty, Rayna’s brother-in-law. No one was more surprised by his release than Ray, photographed below after he heard the news. As I show in the book, the decision to drop the charges was likely part of a political vendetta Beckman was waging against his predecessor, who had brought Ray before the grand jury. Although the judge and prosecutor acted as though Ray had been cleared during Jason’s trial, Beckman never offered a detailed reason for releasing him and did not consult first with those most involved with the homicide investigation.

The injustice baked into our legal system is the ability of a prosecutor, governor, or president to make such a peremptory, indefensible move with no explanation or consequences. Worse yet, when someone is wrongfully convicted of murder, a violent individual is free to commit more violence. Nearly three years after Jason’s trial, McCarty almost killed another in-law.