“Its not a perfect system but its the only one we’ve got”, is a statement you often hear about the U.S. justice system. Well if we used that logic for everything we could say, "sure ENIAC is not a perfect computer but its the only one we’ve got. " So why can’t we study the legal system and see where it can be improved? So, Why can’t we try to make the legal system better? and how can we make it better?
Countless people devote their lives to doing just that. However, there is a problem with large systems. Applying a patch to one set of problems will likely have an undesirable effect on other variations of the problem.
One example that often comes up is tort reform. Anyone can sue virtually anyone or anything any time. Just the costs involved with defending legal threats can be overwhelming for small entities. Various fixes have been proposed like making the loser in the case pay all the legal expenses for everyone. That might be a good solution some of the time but a consequence will be that people that have a legitimate grievance may be afraid to bring things to court at all because the risks are too high for them now.
Almost every major is of that type has the same problem and getting people to agree on the right fix is very difficult. Another issue is that the federal and even state constitutions are very difficult to amend by their very design. Some people think that criminals get too much due process in many cases but the Supreme Court knows what the constitution says and that is that.
Do you have any specific issues in mind that you see as a problem that might have a good solution? I have no doubt there are some but effective blanket fixes that work well in a constitutional republican system are hard to find.
The complaint I always here is about too many guilty people getting off on technicalities.
Here’s the problem. Justice will never be perfect. Guilty people will always go free, and innocent people will be sent to jail.
So the less guilty people who go free, the more innocent people go to jail. It’s a balancing act.
What you call “technicalities” a lot of us call Constitutional Rights. And our ancestors fought a couple wars against the British to gain those rights.
Can’t remember which movie it was, but a character said something like, “In our country, you can get all the justice you can afford.”
That seems to be true. I’d like to see people without a lot of money get access to excellent representation. How? No idea.
Shagnasty - Good points! My opening question was vauge and rambling. Note 2 self: don’t try to start a post when 1/2 asleep. Anyway I guess I am looking for ideas on how we could make the system better. One idea I like is to change the jury system so a single hold-out can’t cause a mistrial. If the other 11 over-ride him then the verdict stands. What are some of your ideas on changes that could improve the system, to reduce the number of innocents convicted and the number of criminals let free?
Be more specific, figure9: What aspects of our legal system do you consider flaws that need correcting?
Hint: Requirement of a unanimous jury verdict to convict a defendant of a crime is not a flaw; it is a way of making sure the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard of proof has been met.
I think the idea of “it’s the best there is” admits to updates, but also acknowledges that a complete sacking of it would not be a good idea.
This is along the lines of the quote I’ve always heard attributed to Churchill, along the lines of “representative democracy is a terrible system, but much better than any other system of government”.
What’s “wrong” with the current legal system could fill a book. Yet I, for one, wouldn’t scrap it for something else. Instead, I’d go off and tackle the worst problems. I’d try to come up with something better, not perfect, just better.
Just at the moment, I’d start by putting a lot more money into law enforcement and youth social services. We can be a lot more effective if we work on preventing gang violence, drug abuse, and other social ills, and we should do that starting at a much younger age.
We also need to set pay levels in these areas to make them affordable for our best citizens. For a variety of reasons, we’re going to have more demand for the smartest people in our society than we have supply. By setting the pay levels to the right point, we can provide a choice based on desire rather than economics.
By the way, the same goes for teachers. You want better teachers? Don’t pay them half as much as you pay engineers. Plenty of bright people with teaching potential go into other areas because they could literally not survive on a typical public school teacher’s salary. Where I live (SF Bay Area) choosing to be a teacher is condemning oneself to a life of genteel poverty and disrespect.
The entire point of the jury system is that you’re selecting the juries at random, getting a miscellaneous hodge-podge of the viewpoints that exist in society. Hence it’s not sufficient for a prosecutor to provide an argument that meets the prejudices of eleven twelfths of the people out there; the prosecutor must offer a proof of guilt that satisfies all viewpoints (except those that exist is substantially less than a twelfth of the population). Letting 11 out of 12 give a conviction shifts the balance, reducing the burden of proof on the prosecutor and, in effect, setting a lower standard for proof. Here’s a further discussion of the importance of juries.
My own recommendation is that judges should clearly inform juries that they have the right to judge whether the law itself is just in addition to deciding whether the law itself has been violated.
That’s called jury nullification, and IIRC it used to be a part of jury charges up until the 1950s or so. Nowadays, the players in the court system don’t want you to know about at all, to the point that here in Houston, if you don’t want to serve on a jury, just ask the judge to explain the concept of jury nullification. You’ll get bounced and probably so will everyone else on the panel.
One of the things that I would like to see changed is the idea that a criminal can sue his victim if the victim defends himself and injures the criminal in the process.
Because there’s no general agreement on what parts of the legal system need to be fixed. Aspects that some people would like to see abolished are the same things that other people want to have more of.
You might find this older thread interesting: So what is “getting off on a technicality”.
No one should be able to sue as a result of injuries sustain as a result of commiting a crime under any circumstances :mad: . No exceptions.
So if I am annoyed that your kids continually commit the crime of trespassing on my property, by taking a shortcut across my yard to get to the playground, I can conceal a steel beartrap under the fallen leaves to make them stop. And with “no exceptions”, I never have to worry about being sued over this!
Is this really the kind of a society you want to live in? I’d much rather live under are current legal system, faults & all.
Why? If the criminal doesn’t have a basis for his suit, he’ll lose.
What do you guys think of profesisonal jurors?
I’m all for it. Using a system not unlike residency (for medical doctors) before lawyers can “act on their own” kinda thing. Since that will not be enough people to fill all juries - I would say, one “professional” per jury and make him or her the chair, or possibly two, with the seniormost being chair.
Make some sort of rotating assignment for the first portion of the residency, with the final portion being devoted to the legal speciality of the person’s choice.
I don’t call them technicalities, the people who complain about them do.
To a large extent, our legal system is self-correcting. Flaws that are discovered in the system are recognized and addressed by appellate courts. So, if there is a manifestly unfair situation, (say for instance, accused persons not being made aware of their right to remain silent), the courts can throw out a few prosecutions. The law enforcement community learns (usually quickly) what is expected of it and adjusts its practices and procedures to confirms. There – the legal system has just been improved.
You could argue that virtually every appellate decision is in a sense an improvement of the legal system.