[b said:
Quote[/b] (herenorthere @ Mar. 30 2005,7:16)]Mind boggling. Especially when you think about how difficult it is and how long it takes to get a drug dealer into jail or force a landlord to turn on the heat or to force a company to follow environmental regulations.
The lesson learned here is: (Ozzy, this isn't directed at you... it's just my rant on how much the legal system disgusts me).
The law is not the friend of naive, law-abiding citizens who get caught in a bogus or chickens**t charge. It will chew you up and spit you out. Hardened criminals, however, can work the system with ease. This is why it is so important to get a lawyer, even if you think you have an airtight defense.
Prosecutors are almost all scumbags. They care nothing about justice, or what is logical and reasonable. They just want to win their case. Prosecutorial misconduct is far from a rarity; it is the norm.
Judges cannot be assumed to be reasonable, logical, or fair, or even intelligent. In their courtroom, they are God, and if you don't grovel sufficiently, things will go badly for you.
Judges and lawyers are overwhelmingly scientifically illiterate. Despite the law degree, an astonishing number of them don't grasp the concept of evidence in an epistemologic sense, and their deductive logic and critical thinking skills are no better than the average poputation, which is to say, appalling. To a large degree, they do it to themselves, since they don't care if they win a case on the weight of evidence, or on deliberate errors of logic.