Friday, April 11, 2014

Why I'm Afraid of the Justice System

"In matters of truth and justice, there is no difference between large and small problems, for issues concerning the treatment of people are all the same."
-Albert Einstein

I liked Matlock. No, I'm not sixty years old, not even close. But what's not to like?  Senile old dude defending the innocent, catching wrong doers and everything always turned out alright in the end. Sadly the real-life modern world doesn't work like that. I'm utterly terrified of ever having to go to court because the justice system seems so completely broken.

We have kids getting away with running down and killing 4 people because his lawyers successfully argued that he was too rich to be responsible for his actions. We have patent trolls suing podcasters because they claim they own the rights to "podcasts." That's like owning a patent on "books." Not a single book or type of binding mind you, but all books. Everywhere.

It's not quite as dire here in Canada, but it's bad enough. The province of Quebec was recently trying to institute legalized racism (this week's election hopefully put an end to that). And no one knows how Rob Ford is still in office.

These are the courts that are supposed to exonerate the innocent and condemn the guilty, neither of which seem to happen on a regular basis. I certainly don't feel comfortable putting my fate into their hands when you have no idea how honest (or sane) the judge and lawyers around you actually are.

16 comments:

Ornery Owl of Naughty Netherworld Press and Readers Roost said...

Andy Griffith and my father were in a similar age range. In the Andy Griffith Show era, they didn't look that much alike. By the Matlock era, they could have been twins. It was uncanny.
Thanks for visiting KHEL 666.
I too am afraid of the justice system. I don't know much about Rob Ford, but I can't figure out how that idiot Todd Akin got elected in the first place! Be glad that we and not you are stuck with him.

C.D. Gallant-King said...

Yeah, Akin is pretty friggin' bad, too.

We just had a Canadian senator arrested yesterday for assault and drug-related charges. He was already suspended after being charged with fraud and breach of trust a few weeks ago, not to mention he still faces charges for sexual assault from last year. If he gets off with this I'm moving to Honduras.

Birgit said...

Ahh the fat bombastic Rob Ford is mentioned-I betcha he'll get in and that will be a sad day. I am also angry at the justice system. When the Lyndsey Lohan's and Justin Bieber's do notorious things over and over again and still are out of jail where we would have been thrown into the dungeon and forgotten you know there is a double standard

C.D. Gallant-King said...

Lohan and the Bieb's crimes are minor considering the murders, assaults and drug-related crimes that seem to go unpunished on a regular basis. But it is indicative of the huge double-standards that exist in the Justice system: Rich and/or famous people (especially white people) get one kind of justice, while other folks get something completely different.

Anonymous said...

Thankfully I haven't had any first hand experience with our judicial system, and hopefully it stays that way :)

Unknown said...

Wow, very deep perspective on the legal system. Yes, that kid that got away with murder was insane. I also felt a certain way about the Treyvon Martin case. By the way, I love your Einstein quote and thanks for stopping by and checking out my blog on the matter of religion.

All the best in the AtoZ Challenge.

Frances

Sherry Ellis said...

Glad I haven't had to deal directly with the justice system!

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ViolaFury said...

I understand fear of the justice system, although I must say I am rather surprised that Canada is as asinine as the United States. I would chalk it up to a major case of stupid, but it too many cases here, greed and avarice are clearly the impetus for the behavior of our politicians. They may pay lip-service to "for the good of the nation" but all the while, subversion exists, eroding our constitutional rights and doing their damnedest to abrogate our rights to privacy, freedom of speech and habeas corpus, slowly and in ways most Americans don't even comprehend. Damn right I'm afraid of the Judicial system and the Government.

C.D. Gallant-King said...

And good luck to you with that! Keep paying those speeding tickets on time! ;-)

C.D. Gallant-King said...

Well, I wouldn't call it particularly in depth but thank you for the vote of confidence! And let's hope that the afluenza kid's parents get taken for every cent they're worth in civil court.

C.D. Gallant-King said...

Yeah the extent of my dealings come from that LA Noire video game where you play a cop. It's a hell of a lot more straight forward than in real life, and the bad guys always got what was coming to them in the end.

Thanks for reading!

C.D. Gallant-King said...

Canada isn't as bad the US. We don't have the frivolous lawsuits, and the miscarriages of justice have been few and far between.

What we do seem to have (at least as of late) are crooked and shady politicians. Seems like there's a new scandal every other week. There's got to be some honest politicians and judges left somewhere though, right? Am I just being naive?

Unknown said...

I don't blame you there... lawyers are supposed to make sure that justice is done and that people get a fair trial... but somehow that's turned into representing frivolous suits, manipulating the system and letting criminals get away with atrocities. At least here in the States.

C.D. Gallant-King said...

I find the television show Suits fascinating because it's all about lawyers settling cases out of court in underhanded and manipulative ways, which is probably truer to what happens in real life than those dramatic trials that have been popularized in fiction over the years. The main "protagonists" are kinda slimy, and after 3 seasons I'm still not sure if we're supposed to relate to/cheer for them or not.

But hey, it's filmed in Toronto (despite being set in NY) so we gotta support it! ;-)

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