Justice?

 We saw other examples of our criminal justice system last week.  We saw two men convicted in the murder of Malcom X exonerated after nearly 60 years and we saw another man found not guilty of murder though there is no doubt he killed two men.

Over the years we have seen many miscarriages of justice many of which we only know about because of subsequent corrections.  Of course it isn't much of a story to write the person committed the crime, was caught convicted and sentenced appropriately except maybe right after it happened. 

Most of the time the authorities get it right.  Often the cases are so shut and dry that they are resolved simply via plea bargains.  

Watching TV shows you might get the impression that many innocent people take plea bargains and if you ask incarcerated people they mostly claim they were innocent.  Most weren't.

Our system does at times convict innocent people and many of those people are poor minority people.  We however mostly get it right.  In fact we have many safeguards in place to protect defendants although most of them were put in place because of abuse.

In fact most of our criminal justice system runs on the barter system.  Suspects are simply trying to get the least amount of time while the authorities are mostly trying to get a conviction.  The victims generally are hardly involved in most of this although they may be asked to agree to the sentence.

It sort of works.  Sometimes it fails spectacularly.