On Capitol Hill last week, Congressman Sam Johnson expressed a feeling that many Americans may be inclined to endorse:

“Terrorists just do not deserve the same right to trial as Americans. Moving terrorists to New York will give those who wish to harm us constitutional rights that they do not deserve.”

Though this opinion feels right, the American system of justice is not supposed to be based upon feelings. In the United States, is supposed to be based upon rationally considered facts. If we consider Representative Johnson’s ideas in a rational manner, it quickly becomes clear that they would lead to an inherently unjust system of law in the United States.

Johnson declares that “terrorists” do not deserve the same right to trial as Americans. However, the status of who is and who is not guilty of terrorism isn’t up to Johnson, or other members of Congress, to decide. That’s a power that the Judicial Branch is supposed to exercise, through the legal process of trial.

To declare that someone doesn’t deserve a proper trial because they are guilty of a criminal act makes no sense. It’s the trial itself that determines guilt, after all.

American justice is founded upon the principle of the presumption of innocence. Until the process of a trial proves that someone is guilty of a crime, our system is supposed to treat the accused as innocent – especially if the accused person is profoundly unpopular or suspected of committing an especially terrible crime.

Sam Johnson’s approach is to presume guilt, and then to begin punishment for a crime before a trial can even begin. Johnson’s choice of premature punishment is to take away the right to a trial at all.

Perhaps you don’t feel sympathy for someone accused of the crime of terrorism. That’s your right. However, before you accept Sam Johnson’s angry idea of warping the American system of justice, you ought to consider the implications for yourself.

You may think that only the guilty have something to fear from Congressman Johnson’s approach, but consider that Johnson would have the United States presume that people are guilty whenever they are merely accused of involvement in terrorist acts. If we allow Johnson’s approach to become the standard procedure, then anybody at all accused of terrorism would be presumed guilty, and deprived of the right to prove themselves innocent through a fair trial.

Under Sam Johnson’s system, if someone in the government with an axe to grind, or some law enforcement bureaucrat who made a simple error, accused you of being a terrorist, you would be doomed. You would never have the right to prove your innocence. Once we create that kind of power, the government will have the right to send anyone to prison for life, or even to be put to death, on the basis of nothing more than an unproven accusation.

Sam Johnson may think that his anti-trial rhetoric is helping to keep America safe, but in fact, he is putting American liberty in terrible danger.