Summary: The justice system is a flawed broken system that serves the needs of the big instead of protecting the small.
There aren’t many judges or anyone in the legal system that will openly speak out against it. The corruption in our justice system isn’t the commonly thought-of “paying off judges” type. The corruption in our system runs deep in the beliefs of those involved. The justice system was established the way it was to give the small guy a fighting chance at proving their innocence against those in power and wealth.
The first factor that Kozinski points at is the withholding of crucial evidence from the defense teams. He specifically calls out a case where the government targeted a “thoughtcrime” prosecution. They accused a man, based on his Google searches, of planning to use the ricin in his lab for a biological weapon. Evidence was mishandled, causing investigations into the police lab, but that investigation was never disclosed to the defense.
Kozinski goes on to address the false assumptions that judges and jurors make. Eyewitnesses are not reliable and are treated likes saints when they can corroborate the prosecutions story but questioned when they are the defense team’s witness. This is especially true when the witness is a confidential informant or criminal getting a deal in exchange for their testimony. Research has shown that when the witness is a different race than the accused, they are even more unreliable, citing the fact that a third of wrongful convictions are from incorrect eyewitness testimony.
The accuracy of forensic evidence such as DNA, fingerprints, and voice recognition has been skewed by television and media. Jurors are under the assumption that this evidence is exact and judges and the prosecution do not properly inform the jurors of this fact.
The last big point that Kozinski points out is the problem with the “presumption of innocence” in court. People assume that when someone is appearing in court then they are already guilty. Those that are accused don’t even stand a chance and have the job of trying to prove their innocence instead of defending it.
Photo: nytimes.com