Pontious

You may want to condemn my actions. Paint me as a cruel vindictive man who used a local tragedy for political gain. Say that if you were in my position, there’s no way in hell you would’ve done what I had done. I doubt that. The reality of the situation is, I was just doing my job.

Hymn and haw all you want, but you weren’t there when they found the bodies. Three little boys tied up and thrown in a bog. You didn’t have to stare at half decomposed children every day for months on end. Only a monster could do a thing like that, and nobody wants a monster walking amongst them. The town wanted vengeance, the cops wanted vengeance, I wanted vengeance. How could you not after seeing what I saw? People were getting antsy after days without a culprit, you can’t imagine how bad it got after months. Nearly every time I left my house, someone was screaming bloody murder at me. I didn’t blame them, I would’ve done the same.

By the time the boy’s name was mentioned, we would’ve jumped at any lead we got. We weren’t surprised; none of us liked the kid very much. He was a mouthy shock jock with no respect for authority. We all thought we had our guy, evidence be damned. 

The prick mouthed off in the interrogation room. Treated being accused of triple homicide like a giant joke. I’m not gonna lie, it felt pretty good to charge the little fuckface. That was before I really started to put a case together. 

I spent twelve hours a day combing through whatever possible evidence I could find on the kid and I was still coming up short. It took me longer than I would like to admit, but I eventually realized that the boy couldn’t have done it. At that point, however, the entire town wanted him dead. What was I supposed to do, stop prosecution? It wasn’t like there were any other leads.

In order to achieve anything in life, sometimes you’ll have to make a few sacrifices; and sometimes, those sacrifices are people. That may seem harsh, but in my line of work the only thing that matters is the audience. If the crowd wants peace, you give them peace, and if the crowd wants blood, you give them blood. There’s a few things they won’t tell you in law school. Keeping the people happy is the most important part of being a prosecutor. 

I clammered together whatever evidence I could and presented my case. Convincing the jury wasn’t difficult, the entire town was itching to get the boy behind bars long before the kids went missing. Convincing myself was harder. The only evidence I could pull up were some vague eye witness testimonies, a knife dumped in a lake that couldn’t be traced back to the original crime scene, assertions of witchcraft, and character assassinations. Now there will be another kid killed senselessly in this town. 

You may find my actions abhorrent, but anyone in my position would’ve done the same. The entire county would’ve been in a frenzy, no prosecuting attorney wants to be the guy that failed to convict a child murderer. So I did my job, passed the buck to the jury. I figured that if the evidence was that flimsy, there was no way a jury would convict him. I was wrong. The boy was found guilty before he was even taken in for questioning. The reading of the verdict was merely a formality. 

But none of that was my fault. It’s the jury’s job to examine the evidence, I just presented the case. They were the ones who killed that kid, not me. I just did my job. It’s a shame, but these things can’t be avoided. As much as we’d like to ignore it, the simple fact is that false convictions happen. No heroic actions or perfect system could avoid it, and it isn’t my fault that a case like this ended up at my doorstep.

I did the best I could under the circumstances I was given. It’s not any more of a tragedy just because of my involvement. The best thing to do now is just to forget it. Move on to my next case, or focus on running for office. Start with a clean slate. I wash my hands of it.