Perry Mason: novels, a radio show, the TV series that presented 271 episodes between September, 1957 and May, 1966. The show was syndicated in fifty countries, can still be seen in reruns.

Week after week, lawyer Perry Mason's clients were accused of murder or other vile crimes and looked guilty. Mason believed his client to be innocent and proved it just before the final commercial, often eliciting a confession from the true culprit. His clients were really innocent: no clever tricks where the guilty party is found not guilty on a technicality and goes off to Acapulco or the Riviera. When Perry Mason was present the innocent went free and the guilty were convicted. Justice.

Years ago it occurred to me that without Perry Mason for the defense the innocent person would unquestionably have been convicted. Prosecutor Hamilton Burger would have sent him or her to jail without remorse, maybe even believing the unfortunate person guilty.

If you have to retain Perry Mason to stay out of jail, the system is in trouble.

Such thoughts brought on a recurring (non-clinical) depression and a profound pessimism about the U.S. criminal justice system.

In United States judicial tradition, innocence is supposed to be assumed until guilt is proven; this is based, among other things, on the clause in the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, "No person shall...be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." But in a 1999 nationwide survey on the U. S. Justice system, the American Bar Association revealed that two thirds of the people interviewed believe an American citizen accused of a crime bears the burden of proof of innocence. Two-thirds! They watched Perry Mason, why don't they understand?

Or do they, indeed, understand?

Humanitarianists agree with law&orderists that the system is in bad shape, different though their respective takes on the matter may be. Each blames the other for the alleged calamity. The former cry out that innocent persons are convicted; the latter, that guilty persons go free or are insufficiently punished. Both complaints may well be justified.

The routine plea bargain. The immunity from prosecution--one guilty guy agrees to rat out another guilty guy; the former goes home or to wherever he pleases or gets a lighter sentence, the latter to the slammer and perhaps to the chair. The star millionaire defense lawyer who always wins. The hungry prosecutor on the way up who will do anything to get a conviction. The jailhouse snitch. The exculpatory evidence not shared with the defense. The corrupt judge. Planted drugs, planted guns. Being Black, Hispanic, Native American, Muslim. The inept defense--a public defender in Texas slept through his client's trial and the client was convicted of murder. The media circus. The technicality that frees the murderer. The country club prison for convicted CEOs, CFOs and other wealthy criminals. The guilty CEOs and CFOs who are unconvicted because unarrested, uncharged and unindicted.

The innocent people convicted of crimes.

From 1973 to 2009, 133 death row prisoners were proved innocent and released.  God knows how many people jailed for lesser offenses are innocent of the crime they were convicted of. And what about those at whose cases nobody was able or willing to throw money? The freed innocent people reported in the news logically cannot be the only innocent people in prison; they are only the fortunate ones. "Fortunate" is not an altogether appropriate word, if you think about it.

There's more to it than the imprisonment of innocents, troubling as that surely is. Why are there so many people in prison? "As of June 30, 2008, state and federal correctional authorities had jurisdiction or legal authority over 1,610,584 prisoners. Additionally, 785,556 inmates were held in custody in local jails... over 2.3 million inmates, or one in every 131 U.S. residents [0.76%], were held in custody in state or federal prisons or in local jails, regardless of sentence length or conviction status... One in 21 black males [4.76%!] was incarcerated at midyear 2008, compared to one in 138 white males. At midyear 2008, black males (846,000) outnumbered white males (712,500) and Hispanic males (427,000) among inmates in prisons and jails. About 37 percent of all male inmates at midyear 2008 were black...."

A few years ago, just when the system seemed to be bottoming out, we lost Communism, and Terrorism became the ism that persons regarded as unsatisfactory are accused of practicing, supporting, funding, or being soft on. Politicians are terrified they will not seem to be sufficiently against it. The evidence, if any, against persons accused of terrorism is often classified and can't be divulged, not even to the accused or his or her lawyers, if any. Middle Easterners, especially Muslims, and minorities are particularly good targets. (On the other hand, selected accused terrorists are treated differently. Think for example of Luis Posada Carriles.) People have disappeared--no conviction, no arraignment, no lawyer, no trial, no rights, indefinite incarceration without being charged. Recent legislation seems to extend these dangers to U.S. citizens.

Perry Mason, where are you when we need you?

But Perry is happy not to exist in the allegedly real world, where he would have to take part in a system he sees as an incompetently written series loosely based on stories by Franz Kafka, so unsatisfactory as entertainment and so lacking in redeeming social value that it can't possibly continue in prime time.

The wall between satire and events having been breached so often, satire is in danger of being taken literally and the satirist is in danger of being dubbed journalist or philosopher, or of being accused of sedition or patriotism. Thus the present disclaimer:

I do not believe the "plausible theory" described below to be correct. The intention is satire. I believe that the people in charge, for the most part, are probably not as insane as conspiracy theorists might believe or a satirist's teasing might suggest. Not quite. Let us hope.

The Plausible Theory

The people in charge of the United States feel that they need constant wars and unnumbered military bases. But the required numbers of military personnel have not appeared, in spite of advertising and inspiring exhortations. Lamentably, civilians hired to fill part of the gap have often turned out to be unsatisfactory, even embarrassing.

Soldiers are needed!

But conscription is seen to be out of the question. The Vietnam experience reveals that if there were a draft, these wars would have to stop. Therefore there is no draft.

The armed forces are desperate for more people.

The people in charge foresaw the problem some time ago. They asked themselves how, without starting a kind of war that they could not control, they could get many, many more people to enlist of their own free will.

What occurred to several brilliant minds among them was this: If the only options were poverty, crime, and the armed forces, a lot of people would opt for the armed forces. A vast increase in joblessness would produce the required increase in enlistments (along with the unfortunate but inevitable increase in poverty and crime).

The answer, then, was to create a depression.

But there was a problem with this: how were the people in charge to stay rich?

The answer was simple and not too difficult to implement, although it took some patience. About twenty years were required to ruin most of the economy unconnected with the military. That accomplished, the remaining elements could be installed.

A few unsavory financial operators are being removed from the game with blazing publicity, creating the impression that manipulators of the economy are being placed under control. Numerous public servants have received detailed explanations regarding the products that campaign contributions purchase. Some public servants have also received communications concerning financial and romantic peccadilloes, as well as general foolishness not excluding criminal acts, that they would not wish to be made public. The peccadilloes of selected members of both Parties, but principally of the one now out of power, have been put emphatically before the public. With this balanced agenda of reminders, threats and publicity, control has been confirmed over key elements of the Party now ostensibly in power and support has been withdrawn from key elements of the other Party, while the latter is being manipulated so as to look every day more foolish. And the Press has been told what is expected of it.

With the problem thus basically solved and the final stages of the project in motion, things are progressing nicely. Military recruiters are busier every day. Wars can continue, bases can proliferate, military budgets can continue to rise. And the people in charge get to stay rich.

So far the depression is a great success.