There Ought To Be a Law...

I have commented in the past that the justice system often perversely delivers injustice to Americans.  There are literally too many laws, and often enough a new law just makes an older crime illegaller than it already was.  Such redundancy serves to make the law confusing to the people trying to obey it.  I remember teaching a session on compliance with asbestos laws to Navy compliance officers.  One of the things I stressed was that every base was different, in that there were Federal, State, and often local laws, that had to be simultaneously satisfied.  Redundancy of the laws on asbestos meant that in some cases, the laws may work to cross purposes, which would leave the hapless compliance officer with a conundrum.

In the years since, the justice system has only become more degraded.  The abundance of laws has made the normal American a potential criminal at every stage.  As an example, there are already laws on the books making it illegal to drive distracted.  It doesn't matter what distracts a driver, whether it is tuning the radio, answering a cell phone, eating a McDonald's biscuit, or putting on makeup.  So, making it illegal specifically to text while driving is just making that one thing even more illegaller.  It is already illegal if it distracts.

As adults, we should be able to make a determination that we should not answer the phone if we are in heavy traffic, or we need our full attention on the road and our driving.  Making laws like these simply infantalizes the population.  It sends the message that without Big Brother, we couldn't possibly make a decision in our own best interests.

Today at the American Thinker, Robert Arvay has a post entitled How America's Justice System Is Beginning To Crumble. Of course, our justice system is crumbling because in many cases, high ranking individuals, particularly Democrats, seem to get away with things for which lesser personages are put in prison for long terms. But Arvay is not talking about these sorts of injustices. Instead, he is writing about every day criminal justice practices that need serious reform. Things like plea bargaining, for example, or the fact that prosecutors often have seemingly unlimited budgets versus defendants that are often bankrupted defending themselves.

Arvay doesn't offer any solutions in this post.  But I can think of some.  If, after spending the time, and the expense of bringing in expert witnesses, other than the police, and the prosecution still can not secure a conviction, the state should have to pay the defendants costs of defend himself.  There are other things that may make the justice system more fair.

To use the bridge analogy, once a bridge has become visibly and seriously corroded, the need for repair does not require an expert to call attention to it. In the case of the justice system, most of us can recognize its glaring problems and can offer useful suggestions for remedy. The danger signs are obvious and ominous. In many cases, the remedy is suggested merely by identifying the problem and admitting that it is a serious defect in the system. This is the age of "see something, say something," and more of us need to get involved.

At one time we took pride in the fact that our system was designed such that we were more likely to let a guilty man go free rather than put an innocent man in jail. Today, more and more, that doesn't seem the case.

Too often the innocent are encouraged to plead guilty to a lesser crime rather than risk being prosecuted for a more serious one and going to prison for a long term. Then there are prosecutors who seemingly make their reputation by getting convictions, either by hook or by crook. In the 2006 Duke Lacrosse case, prosecutor Mike Nifong attempted to railroad the accused Duke team in an attempt I am sure of getting noticed for a higher office. Fortunately for these young men, their parents had plenty of money and eventually they prevailed.  In this instance, eventually the AG Cooper intervened to declare that the Duke players were innocent and Nifong was disbarred.  But this doesn't happen nearly enough.  Indeed, it was the first time in North Carolina history.

Prosecutors need to again see their part in the justice system as achieving true justice, which means arriving as close as possible to the truth.  The legal profession needs to hold prosecutors to a higher standard of conduct in providing exculpatory information that comes into their possession, and severely censor them when they don't.  Finally, the state should have to pay the cost of defense when someone who has been prosecuted has been found innocent.  Such would make the prosecutors less eager to pursue marginal cases. 

Oh, and the next time someone says "There ought to be a law",,,