The America Justic System
byDecember 5th, 2007 at 6:33 PM
Filed under: Politics
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Every business day that goes by, there are thousands of individuals that are affected by the United States Legal System. The United States which is referred to as “the land of the free” has the largest prison population in the world. American “justice” is one of the most dishonest and corrupt forms of a government process that there is. From bribed judges to phony trials, there are many ways for people, lawyers and/or judges to cheat the legal system. From a personal experience I can attest that the American Legal System is very unjust to the lower and middle class citizens and favorable to those who have infinite expenditures to spend. To anyone entering the country there should be a warning, be careful of what you do in America. The United States puts many innocent people behind bars for long periods of time. The legal system in this country does not care if you committed the crime or not, they care more about if it looks like you were apart of the crime. When a crime is committed the main objective for police and prosecuting attorneys is too find someone who “might” have done the crime. The legal system is all about numbers, the conviction rate. The conviction rate is how many crimes there were and how many arrests were made in relation to the case. For police or the court system to say they have the “bad guy” is good enough for them, as long as they have someone in custody. Once the accused is charged with the crime, guilty or not, they are tried in a court of law. It is then the defendant’s responsibility to provide an attorney for himself or be provided a public defender. Being provided a public defender is not a bad idea if you have not enough funds to provide your own. But, do not expect them to win any cases for the defendant. Public defenders work for the state. Judges and other attorneys know this and know that the defendant they are defending does not stand a chance to fight the charges he faces. Depending on the type and nature of the crime, the trial comes down to who the judge or jury believes the police or the defendant. Ninety nine times over a hundred the judge or jury believe the police over someone who has just been charged with doing an illegal action. Unless this person is of some significance in society or has a large amount of cash, that they do not mind dishing out to their lawyers or a crooked judge. I am not saying all judges are crooked and except bribes, but I am saying that some would very willingly take the incentive. The authorities hate to admit that they made a mistake. Most of the time police or prosecutors will not release a person who has been charge without “significant” evidence, while all it took was a morsel of evidence to charge them in the first place. After a “criminal” has been read his rights, the authorities look for any other charges they can place against the individual to keep them in custody in case the original charges do not hold up. This will in turn produce more charges, which means a harsher penalty. The more charges the more leverage the law has on the individual. This will then make the defendant want to reduce those charges. There can be a couple of ways of doing this: one could be to testify against someone you were arrested with or to inform the police about other illegal activities. Even after giving the information to the authorities, there is no contract or proof that they will lessen your sentence by giving them this information. A common trick is taking a known criminal and let him testify against a defendant falsely in order to bring the known criminal sentence down. This brings me to the next point of the “phony trials” term. I say this because most of the trials you see on television don’t really happen like that in real life. Once they pile up the array of charges, they tell the accused how many years they might be facing. Of course, they tell you the worst case scenario. Once you are faced with those facts, they offer a plea agreement. The punishment is reduced drastically as the accused is most likely to accept the deal, and plead guilty to the charges. This is counted as a guilty verdict and that is all the courts care about. Another problem I have with the legal system in this country is the fact that you let a stranger, your lawyer to determine the fate of your life. With someone being incarcerated your only outside source may be your lawyer. I am not saying every lawyer and/or attorney is like this, but there are many that are in it for the money. The United States Constitution states that all individuals are entitled to “a fair and speedy trial”. This hardly what some individual receive, especially if they do not have the funds to provide their own attorney. On the other side, there are some positives about the system. One being, when the defendant decides to have a jury trial, Americans are normally very smart and intrigued in criminal activities. This makes for better results, due to the focus and determination by the jury to get the right verdict. Some countries on the other hand, do not even give bail to criminals. No matter what the crime is they make them stay in prison until their case has been heard. Here, depending on the crime you may receive bail to go home until your court date. If the charges are violent and the authorities are fearful of the criminal repeating the offense, they may keep him in custody. One of the more appealing rules in the legal system is the appeal process. No matter what the crime is America has a system where a convict can file an appeal. I believe this is one of the most important systems we can have. This has gotten many people out of jail for a crime that they did not commit in the first place. I believe that the legal system in this country is flawed. Although third world countries make have it worse, it does not make it right. Criminals may have more rights than in other countries and they may even be treated more humanly, but there is still corruption that we cannot ignore. The legal system is like a work in progress and there is still a long way to go until we can perfect both sides and keep it balanced like the scales of justice that it is represented by. I plan to go into the field of law for this very reason. Criminals need to be punished and taken off the streets, but too many innocent people are accused of a crime of which they are not guilty and they fall victim to the games of the corrupt authorities. There needs to be better representation for those of lesser means and intelligence who are incarcerated unjustly. |
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USA - Legal System Flawed?
jcoop212 (writes) "I believe that the legal system in this country is flawed." Ahhh Duhhhhhhh? really?
I say stop thinking & writing about something we can not fix in our lifetime. Look what happened to Ralph
Nader - a good person, lawyer and thinker for all of us
and scrifices he made on our behalf. How do we honor him with our "little articles" wit & wisdom? Bullshit,
we just have to think! Vote your mind! Don't allow the
system to force your vote (ultimate power) in direction
you do not believe in. Stand-up for your rights and be
the best person you can be, here and now! It all starts
with a single person making a single decision about some
choice. Think! Read! Make yourself smarter and learn to
make good choices. Stableman