The purpose of the criminal justice system is to pacify the public. The public wants (1) someone to pay (This goes back to early human history in which a crime was seen as bringing a curse on the community. The execution of the "offender" cleansed the community. It is a form of human sacrifice.) and (2) the someone to be the right person.

There are two ways to achieve this goal. The first is to try to identify and convict the right person in every case. This has two disadvantages. First, it is impossible to always be right. Second, it takes a lot of work to get as close as you can. The second is to let everyone believe falsely that the right person was identified and punished. This has the advantage of being much easier. If you give the accused the slightest pretence of having received a fair trial or bully them into accepting a plea bargain then the public will go to the trouble of convincing themselves that justice was done.

You shouldn't confuse the stated goals of any system with its actual goals, especially when the two are oipposed. In theory, the purpose of the welfare system was to metigate and reduce poverty. In fact, the system had every incentive to propagate it. In theory, the legal system exists to arrive at just outcomes. In fact, it exists to arrive at convictions.

A trial is only supposed to be fair enough that the public doesn't ask questions. Anything more is wasteful and counterproductive.

Foobs, you're quite rigth about the inadequacies of our justice system but you're wrong about welfare promoting poverty. The purpose of welfare was to help children and the person taking care of them so that there would be a parent actually taking care of the kids. Now that welfare has been diminished to practically close to elimination, poverty has skyrocketted. Welfare, or what remains of it, has not kepts up with inflation. Furthermore, the maximum anyone can be on it is two and a half year and the child care vouchers that are provided in SOME states are wholly insufficient to meet the going price for decent day care.

Contrast this to many European countries where a single parent is not only helped (and it's not called welfare) but also provided with child care and the opportunity to get an education and training. This is the contrary to fostering poverty!

Foobs:

The purpose of the criminal justice system is manifold: 1) to enforce the rules of society; 2) to protect the community from predators; 3) to rehabilitate those who offend and 4) to incapacitate those who cannot be rehabilitated. Your suggestion that it exists to pacify the public is offensive and ridiculous. What would you suggest that the community do with Jeffrey Dahmer, or Ted Bundy? The prosecution of the predator is certainly NOT for the purpose of pacifying the community, nor is it for any reason as simple as cleansing the community. Failure to prosecute such offenders certainly would be a form of human sacrifice -- it would the sacrifice of the future victims on the alter of whatever the fuck it is that you are trying to say.

In addition, the entire system is loaded in favor of the defendant. The burden of proof is on the State; the offender has the right to an attorney, whether or not he/she can afford one; the rules of evidence do not allow the prosecution to offer evidence that the accused has previously been convicted of committing the exact same crime; confessions can only be used if they were obtained voluntarily; no one can call the defendant as a witness unless he chooses to take the stand, and the prosecution cannot comment upon that failure at all.

I understand being biased. You aren't just biased. You are also completely full of shit. Sure, it's easy to get on the internet and make ridiculous and hyperbolic claims that defy logic or comprehension.

None of this, of course, has anything to do with the case at issue in this article.

kati:

Foobs, you're quite rigth about the inadequacies of our justice system but you're wrong about welfare promoting poverty. The purpose of welfare was to help children and the person taking care of them so that there would be a parent actually taking care of the kids. Now that welfare has been diminished to practically close to elimination, poverty has skyrocketted. Contrast this to many European countries where a single parent is not only helped (and it's not called welfare) but also provided with child care and the opportunity to get an education and training. This is the contrary to fostering poverty!

kati, you make good points about Europe but history seems to show that the situation in the USA is different. Certain cultural factors are different between the USA and Europe (which could be discussed in another post).

Back in the heyday of rampant welfare, poverty in the USA was worse than it is today and more poor people were dying than now. Also, a very important issue- crime in the USA dropped at a shocking rate as the welfare system was dismantled. It has risen and fallen a bit since but never to the scary levels it reached during the height of welfare.

The key issue would seem to be the provision of "free money". People in the bottom socio-economic class did not handle being handed cash every month in responsible ways. It was a week of feast followed by 3 weeks of famine in the house, driving the crime and death rate ever upward as expectations for luxury were promoted then dashed. Switching welfare from a cash provision system to one which provides needed services has made life for the poor in the USA much safer, healthier and better. (yes, this provides an argument for national health care)

Back in the heyday of rampant welfare, poverty in the USA was worse than it is today and more poor people were dying than now. Also, a very important issue- crime in the USA dropped at a shocking rate as the welfare system was dismantled

don't be too sure. as Freakonomics so brillaintly showed, it;s more probable the availability of abortions that helped reduce the crime rate. i do agree the old welfare system was a failure.

ayalonValley:

don't be too sure. as Freakonomics so brillaintly showed, it;s more probable the availability of abortions that helped reduce the crime rate. i do agree the old welfare system was a failure.

I am never "too sure" about conclusions in the social science. Still the welfare argument makes more sense to me than the abortion argument. If the abortion argument was valid, I would think that in the previous decade (early 60's) that the availability of birth control would have reduced the crime rate 15 years later. Instead, crime skyrocketed in the mid 70's.

Moreover, as a social worker across that time span I was able to directly observe the impact of welfare reform. It really appeared to make an observable difference in the world view of lower income families (less sense of entitlement, more value on self-reliance). The abortion view (simply lower population in that cohort) just doesn't feel as valid.

Not really.

The pill went to more affluent people. Reducing their offspring did not reduce crime because their children would have been less likely to become involved in a life of crime.

The women who now resort to abortion are those who could not afford the pill--or were too disorganized to take necessary precautions. Their children would have been of lower income, as well, and would have been more likely to become repeat offenders.