We should look at the criminal justice system as a ship. We, the practitioners, cannot only be travelers during the trip. We need to see ourselves as the team that does the day-to-day work. We share our stories to heal and feel less alone. We publish experiences on social media with #MeToo (and a few years ago #YesAllWomen) by the thousands to show the scale of the epidemic. After keeping her rape to herself for years, Lady Gaga is now speaking about it openly, channeling her experience into “Til It Happens to You,” a song she co-wrote for “The Hunting Ground,” a documentary about sexual assault on college campuses. “I`m here because when I look at the sea of beautiful young faces for whom I can sing and dance, I see a lot of people who have secrets that kill them,” Gaga said. “We don`t want you to keep your pain inside and let it rot like an old apple on your counter, you know?” Of course, even a president who has attempted a coup to overturn the results of an election should be able to avail himself of the legal protection and defense of the American system. But by not holding Trump accountable for more or less anything, it sends a message about justice in this century: the responsibility of American officials who commit crimes is simply out of the question. (Of course, one can always hope that Georgia`s Special Investigative Grand Jury, which currently sits investigating Trump`s possible attempts to disrupt the state`s 2020 election, might prove more effective, but I wouldn`t hold my breath.) I was a naïve teenager when my teacher abused me in 1990, and the effects linger decades later. Every day, I read stories in the news about sexual abuse – on college campuses, in families, among famous athletes, in government, in Hollywood. A tragic common denominator in so many of these stories is the little that happens to the authors. Most sex offenders are never subject to imprisonment or punishment.
Assaults go unreported for fear of reprisals or discounts; Only 33 percent of rapes and sexual assaults are reported to police, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. If you had watched television in the 1960s and 1970s as I did, you would probably have thought that the courts, the law enforcement agencies and the laws they wanted to enforce led to a system in which justice was always done. “Each part of the legal assembly line really has no idea what the other is doing, nor does it understand what the final product is supposed to be.” Gibney: Yes. I will give you a frivolous example and a serious example. The frivolous example is that no one gets excited when they see the jury summons in their mailbox, right? Congress, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that this is an inconvenience from which the elected representatives of our nation should be freed. There are reasonable arguments. You know, they`re very important people, blah, blah, blah. But when the chief justice received a subpoena, he appeared to serve as a juror. Now it has not been selected.
And I can tell you that as a litigator, I wouldn`t have chosen him. They do not want a Supreme Court justice there. But legislators are just freeing themselves, and they`re getting rid of a lot of things. The arresting officer should have handled the situation differently. He should have taken this gentleman and his sick foot to a doctor who could offer medicine, not to a judge wielding a hammer. Instead, the officer reviewed his records and found that the man had an open arrest warrant. He had previously been charged with sleeping in public — a violation of the subpoena on quality of life. But if you`re homeless, public spaces become your only possible residences. The prosecutor knew that the man would not go to court alone because of his physical and mental condition. So he carried his frail body through the city because of the minor violation. He was a harmless person who was punished by the criminal justice system for his lack of housing and other resources. This is how the system deals with poverty and the people who are consumed by it.
The Population Research Institute states: “Poverty is like darkness; That is not a thing. It is the lack of something. Gibney: One of the most alarming stories of the last 30 years in law is the defunding of public legal education, which has really impacted prices, especially at the bottom of the ladder for people who can`t afford legal aid. The other thing is that the law schools themselves have not changed in about 100 years. Now they produce exceptional scholarships. As research institutions, the top 50 law schools are incredible products and of very high quality. As educational trade schools, such as dental school or electrician`s school, they are less good because they don`t offer the practical skills that clients want in the standard curriculum. The next step is to commit to being stewards of justice. How to be a steward of justice? First, if you see that justice is not being served, do something about it. If the public continues to see the justice system fail, popular confidence in the law will soon wane.
If you find that the system is broken, suggest changes to laws or rules. They have the skills, the training and the ability to make a difference, to make a difference. As good stewards of justice, we must be motivated to make the law work in the real world. As Justice Stephen Breyer said, “The law should provide real answers to help real people with real problems. Gibney: Yes, the dishes are very slow. Litigation has become so incredibly costly that it has done two things. First, it led companies to resort to arbitration, not only as a cynical ploy to get by, but because the court system wasn`t really working well. This was perceived as anti-consumer, which is ultimately the case. But companies thought they had no choice. Every legal event can bankrupt people. It is as serious a problem as medical overbilling and health care costs, and it has not been addressed. Medical expenses should be treated first, as the consequence of not receiving health care is that you could die.
But the second thing on the list should be the law, because the second worst consequence is that the law could imprison you, execute you. It should therefore be higher on our list of priorities than it is now. The law needs to be much clearer. It is humanity`s operating system. If we treat it only as this eternal inconvenience that could never be better, it really won`t, and society will fall apart. “The police have been placed in a very difficult system by a legislature that meets the demands of the election season.” Knowledge@Wharton: Where and why has the legal system failed us? Right now, we are at a crossroads.