dy156

We don't need truth serum, we don't need to kill all the lawyers (they're a bunch of bright people trying their damndest to do their job in a flawed system) What is needed is to open the court system up.

It is enormously expensive to try a case, and if that weren't enough, it takes far too long, and the Rules of Evidence and Procedure are so complicated that a reasonably intelligent individual cannot hope to navigate them successfully, and many important facts are kept from the jury. When a case is tried years after the fact, memories are not fresh, but have been "refreshed" with a lawyer's advice, which does not necessarily lead to the actual truth.

Our courts are clogged with way too many cases for them to handle efficiently. Innocent but poor people remain in jail awaiting their "speedy" trial. People that deserve money aren't getting it, while the money sits in an escrow account, benefitting no one. Guilty people are out on bond, and if their defense attorneys are not anxious for a speedy trial, they can remain that way for a long time. We could fix this by creating more courts, or...
Here's my idealistic prescription:

1. Eliminate many small drug crimes, prostitution, and immigration issues through more effective legislation.

2. Undo the Federalization of many crimes that are already state crimes, but became federal crimes when Congress wanted to "get tough on Crime." Federal courts were not designed to handle this, and apart from being enormously expensive, unfair in that the prosecution gets two chances to convict someone(a generalization but it's too complicated to fully explain here), and preventing other cases that need to be heard, it does not ensure justice at all.

3. Whenever possible, have seperate courts and judges for civil and criminal matters. (Already done, to some extent, but it needs to go further.)

4. Eliminate/seriously alter many of the Rules of Evidence and Procedure. This is where good attorneys can really earn their money, but it does not help get to the truth. A good defense attorney in a civil suit can usually prevent a case from being tried if they want to by using the Rules effectively. Summary judgment on this issue or that issue prevent the jury from considering it at trial. The Rules of Evidence prevent things from getting to a jury at trial. This does not lead to the truth. We should start letting everything in, and having the lawyers earn their money by doing a better job of explaining the evidence, rather than keeping the evidence out.
Examples: an illegally obtained confession- it should come in, but have the lawyer argue that it was obtained in a manner that it's authenticity is questionable!
Hearsay- let it in, but then argue that it should be discounted because the person that said it isn't there to say it to their face, and risk cross examination.
I could go on and on, and on with examples. Seatbelts in car wrecks, semen in a rape victim's panities, a grocery store fixing something after someone fell, prior crimes, etc..
Jury selection designed to eliminate any jurors that would lean one way or the other is not something that is designed to get to the truth, but to help the client, and alters what a reasonable jury would determine as the outcome.

To get to the truth, we need some good legislation, and then to open the courts up so that all the evidence comes in, and good lawyers deal with it at trial, rather than rack up huge fees arguing about legal issues that are designed to keep part of the story away from the jury, only to settle it before trial. Cases that settle, even for nuisance value, hurt everyone eventually. Trust juries to be reasonable. In a sense, have the courts adopt an open marketplace formula but instead of the goal being to make money, the goal is justice. This would not do away with the Bill of Rights, and would be less expensive and, I think, a more reliable way of getting to the truth.