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with light sentences and go unpunished for the
serious crimes they really did commit.
Through this procedure another evil may develop.
lndicted but ignorant citizens are sometimes cowed
into accepting a guilty plea for a crime they didn't
commit when a j ury tria! would have found them
innocent of the original charge.
Said one tria! judge of the inaccura,cies of such
assembly-line justice in the United States: "Most
j udges are so burdened with simply getting through
a day and 'disposing' of the allotted quota of cases
that they are usually too weary to undertake the
painful examination of the justice, morality or
common sense of the sentence they impose."
Too, justice is often denied because justice is
delayed. Delay is virtually guaranteed in many
courts clogged with cases, or by drawn-out court
procedures, or by planned tactical delays of litigants.
Sharp lawyers use every tactic they can to delay
prosecution of guilty clients. They know the longer
the delay the more likely their cl ients will be
acquitted. Sorne lawyers hope that witnesses will lose
memories of events, or they will become unwilling to
testify, or move away or even die. In sorne types of
serious crime, lawyers use appeal after appeal to
delay a prison term.
In sorne jurisdictions, there is one justice for the
rich and another for the poor. Wealthier criminal
defendants often get off with comparatively light
sentences for corruption or theft of public or
corporate funds because they can afford the
best lawyers to defend them, while the poor
are often unrepresented, or poorly
represented, and pay proportionately far
heavier 'penalties for theft or dishonesty.
Today, justice may not even be
dependent upon a commonly accepted
standard of good and evil. We live in
an age where a judge, on the basis of
personal
ideas of right and wrong, can
Jet felons convicted of serious crimes
or dishonesty off lightly or be
acquitted, and citizens can do
nothing about the decision.
J
udges in the highest courts
are often divided philosophically
in their values, outlook and
decisions. This fail ure to agree
upon a common moraljspiritual
base for determining -right and
wrong at the highest levels of
October 1985
decision-making frequt<ntly produces confticting
judgments about what is acceptable human activity.
Citizens are angry and alarmed. Many are
tempted to take matters into their own hands and
arm themselves with whatever means they can to
protect themselves.
The widespread failure of justice to deter
criminals and brazen young thugs is precisely the
reason numbers of fear-stricken citizens in the
United States, in highly publicized incidents, have
taken it upon themselves to shoot down crimina ls or
others who threaten them.
As the perception of injustice grows, the foundations
of orderly, peaceful society with respect for law and
order weaken and edge ever closer to anarchy.
Explosion of Civil Disputes
Another social evil now plagues the judicial ' system
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