When I first got a car of my own, I had to register it with Prince William County in order to pay taxes on it. Yeah, the state of Virginia has personal property taxes, which I regard as nothing more than paying the government to keep your car. Again, there’s that whole extortion thing going on where if a private citizen did this, they’d been in Federal-pound-me-in-the-ass prison. Still, that wasn’t what annoyed me most about the whole situation. What annoyed me was I had to get a sticker on my car, next to my state registration, and I had to pay for it. So, I had to pay for a sticker to demonstrate that I had paid my personal extortion taxes.
My parents responded by stating that this is how things are and that on the plus side, the fee for the sticker hadn’t gone up in the 20+ years that they had lived in Prince William County. At that point, I was really angry with not only the county I was living in, but my parents for accepting a bad situation instead of calling for a change of some kind.
This is how I see our entire litigation process in the United States and it is apparent that the entire system is now rigged against the accused. The presumption of innocence is non-existent among prosecutors, judges, and, most importantly, juries as well. The fact is, if you are accused of something, you are guilty in the minds of everyone, even many defense attorneys. The presumption of innocence is not just a legal formality that defendants have, but it must also be the attitude that is shared by all parties during the course of the trial.
I know that this is a hard concept to understand, but if everyone thinks you’re guilty, then it is really hard get exonerated when you are truly innocent. Matters of judgment almost never remain independent of bias, especially in the courtroom. The O.J. Simpson case is an excellent example of how the racial and political prejudice of a few people can let a brutal murder go unpunished. The evidence clearly pointed to O.J. Simpson, yet the jury voted to acquit for all the past injustices, real or perceived, that been inflicted on the black communities across the nation.
And that’s the other thing that makes the legal system stacked against you. Often times, the juries that are selected on the basis of their support of the state and not for being an individual. The old joke is that the easiest way to get off of jury duty is to express your support for jury nullification where if a juror doesn’t believe that the crime the accused is charged with should be a crime (like possession of illegal substances), then a juror can vote to acquit. This is something that insults the judges and prosecutors because it indicates that you are just as smart as they are. Arrogance is probably the largest vice within our modern legal system.
So, with a stupid jury who ask the question of if you committed a crime, rather than asking should it even be a crime, and a judge, prosecutor, and possibly a defense attorney who already regard you as guilty, the whole system is stacked against the accused.
To top that off, we are suppose to have the right to a speedy trial, but it doesn’t appear that this is the case anymore. Most cases are taken care of months after you are arrested, allowing the legal system to shake you down for bail money. Shouldn’t you be able to simply go without having to pay for freedom? You haven’t been convicted yet and there you are already presumed to be guilty. The very idea of having to post bail is just another Statist idea and it is affront to the very notion of being innocent until proven guilty.
The punishments that are issued are never for the benefit of the victim, but usually to the benefit of the state. For example, if you steal someone else’s stuff and are convicted of it, you’ll either end up in jail or with a big hefty fine. Either way, your victims are not forcibly compensated for the damage you’ve caused to them. A better punishment would be to make criminals compensate their victims for the property they’ve damaged. Instead, we raise the importance of the state over the individual.
Lastly, much like police misconduct, prosecutorial misconduct never results is much punishments meted out to the offenders. In fact, even when these prosecutors are caught, they are usually in a higher position of authority and will work against the investigators at every turn. I know, this is probably the exception rather than the rule, but to be honest, I never hear of a case where a prosecutor is kicked out for misconduct and I know it exists. The thing that makes prosecutorial misconduct worse than police misconduct is the fact that prosecutors sometimes hold people’s lives in the balance.
At the end of the day, the state always wins, much like a casino, except you don’t have to go into a casino. Instead, if you are accused of a crime, you will have to play along with the state, regardless of truth of your guilt or innocence, because our legal system is no longer concerned with the truth. The truth is largely irrelevant in most courtrooms, and the important thing is that you follow legal precendent and acknowledge the superiority of the state.
And that is why our legal system makes our nation a police state more and more each and every day. When the truth is largely irrelevant, and the state is the god of the courtroom, you have a legal system designed not for justice, but for demonstrating state superiority. And that is nothing more than a police state where the legal process is a mere formality.
Of course, any good police state cannot exist without the necessary laws to back them up. And when you have a collection of selfish individuals gathered together to write new laws, you’re going to be a criminal no matter what you do.