Spinoff...Is it really justice?

[GracieMae]

Do you have faith in the justice system? What do you feel are factors in people manipulating the justice system? What are your suggestions for correcting the problems?

[Slabobbin]

Our justice system makes me sick, I could make a post a mile long with the things I find wrong with it. However it IS better than some others I have heard of. I am not very well educated on the justice systems of most other countries so I don't have much to compare ours too.

And honestly, I don't know the answer. As long as you have humans running it, it will be corrupt.

[mom2burgess]

I have much of the same feeling as Slabobbin. I am so sick of famous and wealthy people who are able to get off scot free because they can afford high powered attorney's and just because of who they are. And that happens in most cases you hear about. Justice is supposed to be blind but if a poor person has murdered his wife, and had all that evidence against him, he would have gone to jail, yet OJ simpson is on the streets. It a normal person had dangled his child out of a third story window, his children would be removed from the house, yet Michael Jackson still has his children.

[Tara mom2four]

I dont have faith in the justice system its all a crock around here. Only thing that matters is who has the money and better lawyer.

[April]

To some extent I do because our justice system has given us certain rights and removed certain punishments (abortion, death penalty). But even though it is my chosen field, the legal system is flawed.

Yes, a lot of people get off on technicalities, and its not the attorneys fault. He/she is doing their job and the reason they are able to get their client's off is because of the way the laws are written. Its not like the judges feel good about letting criminals go free. Their hands, and the hands of the juries, are tied. The law says if you have reasonable doubt, you must find the accused not guilty. The OJ jurors had a doubt.

We have the means to change our laws but we don't use them. We have Senators and Governors that WE elect but have any of you ever written your elected officers? Maybe one or two people have, but that's not enough.

Recently we had a case in this area (actually, it was Iowa) of a woman who was so badly abused by her husband that she killed him. She then hid his body in her house, between a mattress and box springs. She tried to use lime to cover the smell but eventually the body was discovered. She was recently given a mandatory 35 year sentece but the judge said he regretted having to give it to her, that he felt it should be less because she was a battered woman. Letters of support poured into the courthouse, to the woman's lawyer, the papers. And now because of it, Iowa is examining its mandatory sentencing laws. So don't think that the general population can't do anything about the laws.