Celebrating Police Misconduct

It is not only US movies and televesion that show the good guys ignoring the fundamental rights of suspects.

The Ferocity of U.S. Criminal Justice

Towards the end of a criminal trial in which a law partner of mine was defense counsel, he was approached by a journalist from a German newspaper who had been observing the trial. She asked him why American criminal justice was so ferocious towards defendants. The question is a good one. Our system is, in fact, anti-defendant to a degree perhaps unique in the civilized world. The German journalist’s question highlights a great divide in perception, for if you raised the subject of criminal justice with a random citizen of the United States, the question you might hear would be: “When are the courts going to close the loopholes and stop being revolving doors for criminals?”