What style of judicial system would you prefer and why?
What’s wrong with the one we’ve got?
I’m dissatisfied with the amount of time and money we blow wrangling legal nitpicks when we ought to be considering the merits of each case.
Oh great…legal nitpicks. Like whether the evidence was seized in an unlawful search, or whether Defendant was beaten until he confessed. Tiny little insignificant details like that.
:rolleyes:
Wow hyperbole much?
I’m referring more to things like procedural holdups, paperwork, endless appeals while arguing cursorily relevant case law, loopholes and the like. There is a world of difference from that and gross violations of civil rights.
*ETA…I’m off to work, so won’t be around for a bit to respond. *
Talk about things you do not understand, but somehow feel qualified to change much?
Laymen often are baffled by the way the legal system works. This is not indicative of flaws in the system. Legal matters take time, because in an adversarial system, each side wants (and has the right) to present the strongest case they can. They also wish to review and consider the evidence the other side intends to present. Often, this process leads to settlement without the need for a trial.
Sorry, I still don’t understand. I think your perception of “loopholes” and “cursorily relevant case law,” etc. is missing something.
Something else. A system that only seeks the truth. This would mean no exclusion of any real evidence (evidence proven false would not be used of course) for any reason. If someone does not follow the rules gathering the evidence they would be charged with a crime separately, never would it excuse a crime for the person who did one.
Then also the accused must testify himself and if he won’t a guilty plea is simply entered for him at that point. His testimony can and will be examined for lying as well both evidence wise and lie detector wise with the results given later in the trial as additional evidence. Now there is a good system.
Oh bullshit. That’s an insane system. Coerced confessions freely admissable? Lie detectors with have little or no reliability and are not currently admissable in court suddenly elevated to magical truth machines?
Try again.
It appears you labor under the misconception that guilty people charged with crimes are getting acquitted in significant numbers. Given that 90% or more defendants plead guilty, and 90% or more of of those going to trial are convicted, I think the bigger problem is innocent people getting convicted. Do you really think the government get’s the right guy for the right crime over 98% of the time?
People like the OP are often amusing. They rail against the “flaws in the system” until they get popped for a dui or something, and then they want their lawyer to go all Perry Mason because they didn’t get read their Miranda rights. Then when you explain why Miranda doesn’t really matter as long as the prosecutor doesn’t intend to offer any statement they made into evidence, you get the classic deer in the headlights look, followed by the “but this can’t happen to me, I’m not a criminal”. Good times.
Not really. If I was ever stupid enough to drive inebriated I’d take it like a big boy when I got caught.
Further, noting dissatisfaction with something and asking how others feel about the issue is hardly railing against the system. I think the current system is overly convoluted, over dependent on case law, and moved to far away from spirit of the law being applied properly.
Sounds to me like you’re just another “all defendants are guilty, let’s skip the trial and go right to the hanging” kind of guy. Guaran-damn-tee you will feel differently if you’re ever in the position of waiting for the most terrifying sound in the known universe…the knock on the door to the jury room indicating a verdict has been reached.
Doing what you suggest would strip the defendants of important constitutional rights…including the right to challenge the evidence against them. You would vest ridiculous amounts of power in the State, and end up with a system you would like even less.
How would that move us towards a more draconian system, or strip defendants of rights? I’d prefer a legal system that sets clear, simple laws and allows the juries to decide whether someone towing the line has violated it or not. I’d also like technical loophole defenses to be held to a much higher standard then they occasionally applied. Beating a confession out of someone is a world apart from making a piece of critical evidence inadmissable because officer goober forgot to sign a paper in triplicate somewhere along the way.
I chose the fourth option because I don’t think that either option 1 or 2 are really realistic assessments of how the law works.
I think that like any system of laws there are probably things that can be improved so I would probably not go with option 3.
So beating confessions is bad, but maintaining a proper…and verifiable…chain of custody of evidence that may be used to send someone to prison isn’t important? So we oughta let anybody wander through the evidence locker and sprinkle DNA wherever they please, but can’t let the defense object to contamination?
If the evidence was critical, the State has the duty to preserve it…without alteration. If they fail to do that, they can’t use it.
The point you either don’t understand or refuse to acknowledge is that the State must be held to the highest standards of accountability before being allowed to deprive the citizens of life or liberty. That simple notion is the premise of the entire criminal justice system.
Criminal and civil have different issues and problems. I have zero experience of the criminal side so I remain hopeful that the nature of criminal issues and the potential harm prompts greater respect for the truth, the law, and the consequences of the legal system’s actions than I have observed on the civil side.
Since the poll seems to be thinking criminal, my basic feeling is that the letter of the law can be unnecessarily cruel, wasteful, and pointless, and that the function of judges is destroyed when they are forced to sentence someone to prison when it is clearly an inappropriate way to deal with their actions. So while there are cases of mandatory sentences that I can understand, overall I think they do more harm than good, and three strikes is a crime in itself.
What I think needs a serious, massive, committed overhaul is our penal system. It is not true that it is impossible to prevent rape and abuse, and it is ***not true ***that criminals cannot be rehabilitated. And I have always found the casual acceptance of rape and violence in prison absolutely maddening and a violation of the constitution. A prison sentence is almost always more than mere incarceration, it is a sentence that includes rape, beatings, slavery, and all manner of things any sane society would call “cruel and unusual”. But no one cares.
So perhaps we need to focus first on education of the society at large, making it clearly understood that it is to society’s very real benefit to care, since it is these horrible conditions that continue to create and nurture petty criminals into being very serious criminals.