Why is our justice system so flawed?

There have been an amazing number of murder convictions overturned. I would not be so quick to hang people, even well off good looking white people, until our justice system is a bit more just.

Our justice system is so flawed because:

1. We have so many laws against trivial, and even victim-less crimes, that the police and the courts are clogged to a standstill.

2. Because the police are clogged to a standstill persecuting people for trivia, nobody trusts them, we do not see them as 'public servants', and they do not get the time or cooperation required to actually do much to prevent or deter crime.

3. Because the courts are clogged to a standstill, thier are not enough good lawyers either, and so given the level of representation we are likely to get, and the delay and cost of going to trial, most people (about 97%) plea bargain, whether they are guilty or not. The less lawyer you appear to be able to afford, the more severe the initial charges, because it increases the liklihood that you will plead. If you do not plead to these nastier charges, they are the ones you are tried for.

4. Those people who go to trial are not tried by their peers, as they should be, because most people who sit on juries are middle aged, middle class white women, and most people who stand in front of one are young lower class men of color. Virtually nobody is actually tried by people who understand their lives, or at least find their appearance non-threatening.

5. The juries not made up of people's peers are extremely unlikely to step out of expectations and find other than they are instructed to do. They are unlikely to find a person they cannot relate to, and find threatening, guilty of a lesser charge they have not been informed exists, and they are unlikely to split the charges, having little of no contact with the court or people who have had contact with the court, they believe everything policemen say, and do not know about the custom of jacking up charges to bargain down, or piling on all sorts of trivial extra charges to bargain away.

So... The well off high profile guy kills his wife in the privacy of his reasonably isolated large home. He is a smart guy, and manages to do this without leaving blood everywhere. he takes her to the dump in a brand new garbage bag without his fingerprints. He gets a show trial, without all the extra charges, and with a charge that is justifiable by the crime at hand. He hires an excellent lawyer, and the whole world watches to see if any of this is making sense... If he is convicted, which he probably won't be unless somebody actually *saw* him, he gets the average sentence, in a nice place (because we all know him, he can't be that bad).

Bob the poor black guy stupidly waits for his buddy on the steps inside a building where somebody will fall on their own kitchen knife tonight. His fingerprints are all over the hall...

He gets charged and convicted of 1st degree murder (and if it is a woman who has had sex this week, perhaps rape as well). This gets little diligence or attention, because his public defender has a total of 4 hours to prepare his case, and the police know that. The evidence is insufficient, everybody knows it is, and nobody cares. The pictures of the crime scene are really gross...

Convicting Bob looks good - hard on crime. The paper runs stories of this 'brutal sex crime' with Bob's picture and pictures of the crime scene, and a politician looking tough. The jury takes 8 minutes. He goes to prison.

His children grow up in unimaginable hardship, he is a felon and so they may not stay in public housing, recieve food stamps, or welfare. 16 *years* later it is discovered that the semen in the woman was not his, and she had left a suicide note. *darn*

But it is OK because Bob does not sue, because he cannot afford a lawyer. he has not worked in 16 years, and he can't find a job now. He is not eligible for foodstamps because he cannot afford to expunge his record. He is still sort of scary looking, and does not appear on Oprah.

Although that is a great waste of life, and a huge injustice, it does not even begin to touch the injustices that accumulate from the forced pleading to smaller crimes. If you want to say you are innocent, but you have no lawyer and must use a public defender, he now has less than 15 minutes to prepare your case. You will not plead and are annoying. You may well wait longer than the average sentence *in jail*, without even the rights of prison inmates, before you even go to court... The lesser plea to a couple of other trivial charges in your past does not look too good... The new array of 3 strikes laws makes this very scary... If you go to trial with your public defender on a non-felony, you will lose 70% of the time. If you go to trial and represent yourself you will lose half of the time. If you go to court with a private lawyer you will *win* over 80% of the time. This clearly proves that those who are not guilty are predestined by fate to have private lawyers!

The answer to this problem is not easy. We need to:

1. Get rid of laws against the trivial, that victimize more people with the justice system than have suffered from the crime. A cost benefit study should be done of every crime... Does it pay society overall to prosecute this crime?

2. Ban plea bargains. Jail officers of the court who counterfit them

3. Comprise juries of actual peers. Inform them of the amazing power they have to make actual justice.

4. Do not allow or expect people to wave their right to speedy trial in exchange for the right to competent representation. If we really care about getting Bob behind bars, we can also pay to have him represented *well* *now*.

Then if people are found guilty, hang em.

well young lady, i do agree with the fact that justice is blind i have lived it. and color is of no matter to me.but as long as we have people in place that are crooks and can and will be bought . greed will take its toll on us. if you want to change things, vote. and if that dont work, maybe we need another revolution. just a thought.

or maybe honest gverment would be a plus too.

When you have judges putting Border Patrol officers in prison for doing their jobs, saying things out loud in court like "Don't bring the law into my court" and saying things like "The constitution is irrelevant" I think the reason becomes obvious!

It's not a "justice" system.

It is a "legal" system.

That is the core of the problem right there.

Ask yourself who makes the laws and who administers them.

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