Herman Thomas, an Alabama judge previously accused of sodomizing and paddling inmates, was acquitted by an Alabama court, having all charges dropped against him.

I found the case of Herman Thomas to be both interesting and disturbing. When confronted with such an alleged abuse of authority, a great deal is at stake: A hard-working professional may have his career destroyed. Herman's family has to endure the spectacle of the trial, while wondering if their patriarch has a secret life. Convicted criminals have to wonder if their human rights are respected enough that they will actually get a fair hearing in court. These cases are complicated.

After being found not guilty on seven counts, Judge Claud Neilson threw out the remaining 14 counts against Thomas. Given that Judge Thomas has had all of the charges dropped, people should leave him alone. The truth, however, is that we must be confronted with the reality that being declared "not guilty" is not the same as being declared "innocent." In that regard, skepticism remains within the deepest parts of our collective psyche: skepticism of the verdict itself and concerns about Alabama politics and a legal system that may have prosecuted an innocent man.

When it comes to the case of Judge Thomas, the other sad truth is that in America's justice system, you can almost never trust a verdict involving an African American against a white person. Nor can you have complete faith in verdicts involving the rich and powerful against the poor and downtrodden. For Thomas, we are presented with a complex montage of race, class and power, leading us to wonder which effect will have its greatest impact. It is my hope that the greatest force in the Thomas case is simply the power of American justice.

Here are the possibilities in the Thomas case that we all must consider:

1) The simple solution: He was acquitted because he was innocent. The charges were brought to the court system and found to be without merit. In that regard, we should celebrate the fact that, in spite of speculation to the contrary, an innocent man was allowed to go free. Judge Thomas has been vindicated, as he should be, and should now proceed to live happily ever after. Hopefully he won't live his life in Alabama, since he seems to have a few enemies there.

2) The prosecutors may have been incorrect, or even incompetent, in their decision to take the case to trial. Given the amount of work it takes to put together a case for trial, one would wonder, hope and believe that competent prosecutors know they have a good case before heading in to court. This would be especially true when facing up against a prominent judge and community leader such as Herman Thomas. Ultimately, the credibility of the prosecutors in this case can be called in to question, since we are all wondering what they were thinking.

3) There was a conspiracy against him. Thomas' supporters have alleged that he has enemies in the county who would like to see his demise. This is not out of the question, since we know that politics can be a dirty game. The problem, however, is that just because your enemies use information to harm you, it doesn't mean that the information is incorrect. Simultaneously, I've seen dirty politics up close, and you'd be amazed at the lies that others will contrive in order to make you look ridiculous.

4) Thomas' power helped him win this case. Anyone who has lived in America for longer than five minutes knows that wealthy, politically connected defendants don't endure the same judicial system as the rest of us. We also know that our nation decided long ago that prison inmates are effectively unworthy of fundamental human and civil rights. The power of a well-connected judge, mixed with the powerlessness of prison inmates, is like putting the Super Bowl Champions on the field with a team from the Pee Wee League. What is saddest is that if Judge Thomas is truly innocent of these charges (which I want to believe he is), the lack of reliability in the American justice system ultimately undermines the degree of faith we can have in either a conviction or acquittal in this case. In other words, our justice system has deviated from its ability to search for truth.

When it comes to Judge Herman Thomas, the bottom line is this: He should be congratulated on his acquittal, but his case still brings problematic issues to mind: The questions have not all been answered, and it is my greatest hope that additional investigations will determine why a seemingly innocent man was forced to endure this form of public scrutiny. I'm looking forward to learning the truth.




Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University, a leading black speaker and founder of the Your Black World Coalition. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.