Somewhat interestingly, I find myself arriving at a topic perhaps better suited to Toad's liking: namely, the "Brokenness of the System." As a backdrop: I have been closely following the Duke Lacrosse Rape Brouhaha and rather interestingly noted that after being cleared of all charges and proclaimed innocent, the players and their lawyers held a press converence . More to the point, the players questioned what their fates would have been but for the availability of high-priced lawyers and the wherewithal to fight a corrupt district attorney and what is increasingly appearing to be corruption within the testing labs used by the district attorney's office.
It goes almost without saying that in criminal defense law as with law in general and, indeed, any processional work, finances are closely tied to the quality of services provided. It is here that one must draw the qestion of justice being related to the price of lawyers. I mean, ostensibly, the adverserial legal system will bear out justice with the prepoderence of truth being the difference between success and failure on the part of either side. At least, that's how it goes in theory. Enter the much-vaunted public defender. If the legal process is to be likened to a fencing match, the public defender would be the fencer with a single rusty foil, fighting three to five well-armed opponents. While it can certainly be argued that the prosecution in many other cases is vastly outgunned in much the same way, it is virtuallyunarguable that the public defender is anything other than the weakest link.
As I sit here and read what I've written up until this point, I'm not sure that I have a solution. While it is certain that the legal system as it exists is relatively broken, unlike with so many of Toad's observations on government, I cannot say that it is the result of consistent decline. Rather, quite the opposite: Miranda, trial by a jury of true peers, public defenders: these are all improvements over the original trial law system as it was envisioned 200 years ago. While the system is not perfect, and indeed rape cases seem to highlight many of the chief flaws in it, legal reform seems to be headed generally in the right direction.
Posted by Vengeful Cynic at April 16, 2007 02:43 PM | TrackBack