The U.S. justice system may seem long, involved and sometimes not very effective (especially in criminal matters), but it has existed in virtually the same form for over 200 years. No other country can claim this. Although I agree that criminal cases should move more quickly, and the punishments should be more swift and severe, the system as we know it is necessary to obtain that result.

The courts are flooded with cases every day and have a limited number of prosecutors, public defenders, probation officers, bail commissioners and clerks to deal with each case. Each attorney for a defendant must discuss their case with a prosecutor before returning to his client for further discussion. Many times attorneys must then research programs or treatments that may be available to a client before returning to the prosecutor with a plan. Not everyone who is arrested and brought before the Court belongs in jail, and a high percentage are not even guilty. All of this takes time, resources and personnel. The process known as "plea bargaining" is necessary to the system because the Courts would never have the time, money, jurors and other resources necessary to bring every case to trial.

As to civil cases, let me assure readers that insurance companies are much less willing to settle lawsuits these days, so those people who believe that they are paying insurance to pay for baseless suits are not really correct. Although we can throw up our hands when we hear about the McDonald's coffee case, those kinds of verdicts are few and far between. For the most part, insurance companies won't settle baseless cases and juries won't award verdicts to unworthy plaintiffs.

To all the writers who commented about how poor our system is, just look at how civilized the U.S. justice system is. If someone is arrested for a crime he or she did not commit, I'm sure that person would enlist the aid of the best attorney around and would beg for the invocation of the protections of defendants' rights, which they may now say are so unfair. In this country, defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in a Court of law. The fact that a person has been arrested in not an indicator of guilt.

Finally, our system of justice relies on a jury. For those who criticize this aspect, I think if they had a case to prove, they would ask for a jury of their peers rather than trial by a judge. Each of us wants the tryer of fact in our case to be able to understand and perhaps empathize with out plight. We cannot always be sure an individual judge will do that. If we wish to continue to have our neighbors, people like us, judging our case for us, then we must also accept that those neighbors are human and make mistakes from time to time. Our system is based on the idea that it is better to let a guilty man go free than to punish an innocent man for a crime he did not commit.

If we believe in our system and work to make it better and more efficient, we will truly have the best justice system in the world." -- A Connecticut Attorney

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