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From superhero movies to the Supreme Court, justice adopts a variety of definitions within our daily lives. While most Americans rely on the judicial system to uphold core values of freedom and equality, not all those prosecuted receive due process under the law. For Professor Sonja Spears, retired judge and once falsely-accused victim herself, her course, Accused: The Gap Between Law and Justice, is her chance to highlight the “dark side of the law, the side that folks don’t necessarily consider.”
Of course, justice is not an easy topic to consider. Professor Spears allows her students to define justice for themselves, evolving the course each term to reflect the interests of the students. Typical topics include analyses of different “risk factors” for those “involved in the justice system on the wrong side of the law,” issues like race, class and gender. Yet, the course “absolutely has a point of view—that of people wrongfully accused.” Throughout the course, students analyze cases of justice through a variety of media, from article reviews to podcasts. But rather than read dry transcripts of law cases, Professor Spears uses the unique lens of individual storytelling to explore this controversial issue.
Students begin by reading the play, “The Exonerated,” by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen, before transitioning to the popular media of podcasts as source material. In “The Exonerated,” students learn the stories of six wrongly accused individuals who were later exonerated. Rather than imagine their fight for justice, the play is written exclusively from public documentation, including everything from police reports to individual narratives of those involved.
Professor Spears explains, “their narrative drives the way we explore the case...students get a personal look into the impact of systemic forces on individuals in the justice system. To see that these systemic forces make a difference in people’s lives, I think that if you can appreciate that then it gives you a greater understanding of why the system should work in a more equitable way.”
Besides a final project, students end the course by viewing justice through the unlikely source of podcasts. Most recently, the class discussed the podcast “My Damn Mind,” an episode of the popular This American Life series concerning depictions of mental illness within the justice system by spotlighting the story of a mentally ill boy who was shot by police in a hospital for manic behavior. A class favorite was the podcast entitled “21 Chump Street,” another episode from This American Life that was later adapted into a musical short by Lin-Manuel Miranda. In this podcast, a naive high school student becomes targeted by an undercover cop who exploits the student’s romantic feelings towards her to uncover the school’s hidden drug trade.
Through analyzing stories like these from This American Life, Professor Spears hopes that students “can think about the justice system in a way that they haven’t thought about it before, whatever that ends up meaning to them.” But the course has meaning beyond the classroom setting: “I think that we take a lot for granted about the way that our justice system operates, since there are lots of laws that need some systemic change. This course is a good way to bring those to the students’ attention and to have students take a closer look into the justice system.”
About the Author
Emma Hodgdon is a senior studying English literature. Apart from reading Gothic fiction, she can be found practicing cello for the Symphony and Chamber Orchestras, or dancing with the university’s ballroom dance team. She spends her free time experimenting with calligraphy, learning to speak Chinese, and caring for her succulents, Verotchka and Geraldine.
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