Thursday, March 20, 2014

Instapundit: The American Justice System is Sick and Damaged And Mark Steyn Must Sing and Dance the Flashdance Theme

Making this piece look better now.

This is an amazing piece by Instapundit-you must read the whole thing!

Professor Reynolds says that the American justice system has become a crime in itself and that prosecutors have wild, unfettered, unchecked powers of destroying citizens. This is true.

They can always find something.

He notes:

"Here's how things all-too-often work today: Law enforcement decides that a person is suspicious (or, possibly, just a political enemy). Upon investigation into every aspect of his/her life, they find possible violations of the law, often involving obscure, technical statutes that no one really knows. "

"They then file a "kitchen-sink" indictment involving dozens, or even hundreds of charges, which the grand jury rubber stamps. The accused then must choose between a plea bargain, or the risk of a trial in which a jury might convict on one or two felony counts simply on a "where there's smoke there must be fire" theory even if the evidence seems less than compelling."

"This is why, in our current system, the vast majority of cases never go to trial, but end in plea bargains."

That is TERRIFYING. 

To borrow a phrase from Mark Steyn: the process is the punishment. 

Yes, even in democracies. In allegedly free countries! 

From Steyn this morning: 

"After a year and a half ensnared by poisonous fecal tendrils in the unpumped toxic septic tank of DC "justice", I don't think "broken" quite covers it. To any non-American, this system is utterly repulsive. In England, trial by jury replaced trial by ordeal. Somehow America has managed to turn trial by jury into a mere postscript to trial by ordeal. I think it ought to be possible to litigate a 270-word blog post in under 270 weeks. So let's get on with it."

P.S:

Some odd man person is having Flashdance fantasies about Mark Steyn, dancing sluttily or something while wanting to be a ballerina and writhing around on some table, and then "knocking askew the board members’ conservative-looking glasses".

First of all, let the record state that I DO NOT SIT ON ANY BOARDS and my glasses are very nice and not 'conservative -looking', but really-not that I would have any idea about fantasies about Mark Steyn writhing on aforementioned table to cheesy 80s music and such...so ridiculous really...

SORRY WHERE WERE WE? I CAN'T REMEMBER WHAT WE WERE TALKING ABOUT?!?!

IS IT HOT IN HERE?

I mean seriously who on earth, that is to say what kind of man person would fantasize about such a thing...

ANYWAY right right legal stuff.

So do read Glenn Reynolds and Steyn.

(And if you recall, most of Lord Conrad Black's problems followed Professor Reynolds formula precisely.)