If you have been watching any football at all from Saturday thru Wednesday then you have likely seen the commercial for the new TV show inJustice that debuts this Friday night.

Now that is going to be a piece of award-winning film making, no? Anything that attacks and undermines the credibility of our justice system, the very bedrock of our civilization, must be award-winning. Right? Courageous, even.

How do I know that inJustice will undermine the credibility of our justice system? Well, since I haven't seen the show, perhaps it wont. But even if the show wont (yeah, right) the ad campaign certainly has already.

You want proof that it has? I'll give you some proof. Here is your proof: Even I am thinking that something is terribly wrong with the justice system if "1,000's of innocent people are wrongly convicted every year." Hell, I was always told that we would rather let ten guilty people go in order to prevent one innocent person from going to jail. What happened to that? Was it ever true or is that just the BS they put out when some ignorant judge from San Francisco or New York or Massachusetts lets someone who is guilty as all sin walk free on a technicality?

After doing just a single Google search to research this show, it would appear the show is ripped straight from an American Bar Association report claiming "a state of crisis" exists in our justice system. From the AP story:

The study by a committee of the nation's largest lawyers' group says that legal representation of indigents is in "a state of crisis." These defendants are at constant risk of wrongful conviction and unjust punishment, including the death penalty, according to the study being released Friday.

Whew! For a minute there I thought they were talking about real people who were at risk. It's just the indigents. If you get a big kick out of watching Cops you probably don't give a shit about this issue. But even so it is hard to believe that a prosecutor would hang a crime on a poor ole retarded person just because it was expedient to do so. Isn't it?

Of course this report comes out just on the heels of President Bush's calling for more money to train lawyers. I don't know where that money was to come from, but you can bet the lawyers wont be too happy about having to pony up. Hell, instead of Bush's retarded idea, how 'bout more money to prosecute lawyers. That'd do more to stop the problem than all the training in the world.

The report recommends that:

• states provide money for public defenders that is on par with prosecutors.
• states establish oversight organizations to police potential abuses such as forced plea agreements or otherwise negligent or inadequate counsel.
• lawyers refuse new cases if workloads are so excessive that id would substantially impair their defense preparation.
• judges report prosecutors who seek to obtain waivers of counsel and guilty pleas that are not voluntary and on the record.

Pfft, like the judges aren't in on it. The judges are the ones who make it all happen. And like the ABA does not already know this. The whole report is a sham. This is all nothing but an effort to get more money for lawyers. A sham that it would appear Bush has bought in to. Wonder what he thinks he will be gettin in return?

Bush: We need to give more money to lawyers. Sounding real smart there W. Too bad instead of letting Ted wheres-my-fucking-pants Kennedy write the education reform bill, we didn't give teachers some more money four years ago. Or maybe even institute a voucher system. Had we tried something innovative instead of some more of the same old shit in a different wrapper, then maybe some of these poor kids who will soon be getting wrongly convicted by greedy money-grubbing lawyers would be going to law school instead of prison.

In the immortal words of Ann Richards, "Poooor Geooorge, he kant hep it." The apple sure doesn't fall far from the tree. W never catches on, does he?

Hey, here's an idea that wont cost any money, which of course rules it out right off the bat. Let's cut the number of laws on the books by about 50% (for starters) and quit dragging so many poor people to jail behind these stupid "war on drugs" charges. If the cops catch a big dope dealer, sure, bring em to jail and throw them in the darkest, dankest cell. Yeah, a lot of people need to be in jail. But locking up people for buying a bag of weed or a rock of crack or however they buy the shit, contributes nothing but a huge expense to society while contributing not one iota to solving the drug problem. Not a damn thing. Drug addicts can not be deterred. I think this has been amply proven over the last several decades. Still we foot the bill because of some retarded socio-political ideology that is fraught with fake morality.

When you have to trudge down to the municipal alters to kiss the ring and pay the tribute for this infraction or that, the other three hundred and fifty people waiting in line to do the same are not criminals either, for the most part. The courts are filled with everyday regular people being harassed for money over breaking any one of tens of thousands of state, local, and federal laws. If you don't think it is all about the money--and power-- you're fucking retarded.

Barring that first solution, here is an even better one. The very quickest solution would be to take any prosecutor or judge who is convicted of wrongly prosecuting and convicting an innocent person, and hang him or her from a lanyard by his or her balls. The problem will dry up lickity split. If there were any political considerations found to be involved in the prosecutor's decision to wrongly prosecute, then that would be an extenuating circumstance and a hot poker would then need to be shoved up their ass for the duration of the hanging. If it was a death penalty case, and the innocent person was actually put to death, the prosecutor and judge can hang until dead.

We've gotten too mushy in this country. When the primary question a prosecutor asks when deciding to go forward with a case is "can I get a conviction?" as opposed to "did the suspect do it?" therein lies the real inJustice.

Consider this: tomorrow it may not be just an indigent problem. With all the electronic trails we leave behind and the video surveillance footage of near every moment we are in public, a crafty prosecutor could put a circumstantial case together against almost anyone for almost anything.

I may have to watch the show just to see who gets the blame for the "injustice". I wonder if they have concluded, like Bush, that the problem is because lawyers need more training? Or maybe they will figure a way to blame the Patriot Act. Somehow I doubt they will point out that there are fair number of lawyers out their serving as judges and prosecutors as well as defense lawyers, that are nothing but self-serving, career-oriented opportunists. Slimy sacks of shit in other words who would sell their own mother for a profit.

1. jdallen01/06/2006 06:35:58 AM

I quit on football a few years back, when it was pretty obvious that the players had a 50/50 chance of being violent felons, so I haven't seen the ad.

There is little danger that I will ever see the show, though. Because I have just about quit on regular TV, too. Kinda makes it tough doing crosswords, is all.

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2. Don Callaway01/07/2006 11:14:19 AM
Homepage: http://www.enormousiNCoNgrUiTieS.com

Hmm. I'll have to remember that on my subsequent lead-ins. I hope your distatse for both TV and football didn't keep you from reading past the first few paragraphs as the article is really about neither.

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3. Sgt Hulka01/09/2006 08:32:22 PM

The always say a district attorney can indict a rubber chicken if he wants to. It would sure be refreshing to know that on occasion they choose not to indict the rubber chicken.

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