The morality of innocence

What does the documentary series The Innocence Files teach us? There is a lot to learn about the challenges and flaws of justice systems and about the humanity and compassion of those who go against the grain to fight for the rights of people whose lives have been wrongly and unfairly destroyed by wrongful prosecution and conviction. There is a lot to learn about the seemingly superhuman capacity for patience and perseverance that some people demonstrate even in the face of the most trying of circumstances, where hope has been completely snatched away from them and even the absolute truth cannot save them. There is a lot to learn about the failings and ill will of people entrusted to protect people's rights and serve justice, and how flawed decision-making or malicious persecution can irreparably destroy innocent people's lives. But there is something that the documentary series cannot teach us at all, because it is impossible to fathom and almost impossible to articulate - that is the value of lost time, lost potential and lost humanity. Even as we watch those who have been unfairly convicted and robbed of their liberty for nearly a lifetime emerge from confinement after vindication and try to reclaim some semblance of a 'normal life', we know that the indescribable pain of lost time, lost potential and lost humanity cannot be erased, cannot be redressed and cannot even be acknowledged. That pain must remain silent and unspoken. Because even to name it and look at it with honesty is too hurtful and soul-destroying. That is something the documentary series cannot deliver to us because it is beyond our capacity to imagine and understand. What is lost cannot be reclaimed, but what remains must be fought for and claimed. It is the morality of innocence - the morality of lost humanity - that remains elusive even as we educate ourselves about people's emergence from the throes of injustice.