What would make justice better?

[DkLnBr]

I have never really liked the American/Canadian justice system and i've been wanting to find a better way to do things.... My thoughts on how to make it that little bit better (in my eyes) is to change "innocent until proven guilty" into " guilty until proven innocent". Why? if there is enough evidence to get you into the court room in the first place, then why are you still seen as innocent? It just seems better to have "this is what we've found. Explain yourself" instead of "this is what we've found, this is why its bad".
Also, making law firms a public service instead of a private one (controlled by the Judicial branch of Govt). This will help with the once-sided lawsuits. The ones where the rich gets the best of the best, and everyone else gets whats left. This way the government can chose two equally skilled lawyers, so that the outcome is more fair and doesn't have to do with who has more money.
Now you guys come in. I admit I dont know much about law, so I dont know how well this would work in real life. So what do you think of my starry-eyed yet amateur ideas? do you think they would work? and what would you change to make the court system better?

Also, bonus points for anyone who can think of something to stop stupid lawsuits, like the ones that involve a lack of common sense (like a guy walking on train tracks with his headphones on, or a robber suing a homeowner if he gets hurt while breaking in)

And feel free to be mean and tell me what you really think without sugarcoating it, my feelings are hard to hurt.

 

[ace_of_something]

Speaking as someone very familiar with criminal proceedings I will tell you this.

You forgot the human element. The reason we do 'innocent until proven guilty' is because, god help us cops but, we're human beings. We make mistakes, none of us want to admit that we might collar the wrong man, but it happens. It's unavoidable with witnesses that lie, guys with a shaky past with an even shakier alibi. They happen. How would you feel if you were one of those people?
The amount of evidence it takes to get in to court isn't, in reality, as much as TV would have you to believe. I can bring someone to trial with as little as two witnesses who are also drug addicts. Will the DA be able to win with that? No, probably not and that's because it should take more than a few witnesses to convict a person.
Not sure where you're getting your statistics as well but the reason the conviction rate for jury trials is kind of half and half is because of this...
very few cases actually have a jury trial outside of capital offenses. Most of the time once arrested a crook (or crook in question) will plead guilty so they can get a minimal sentence because going to jury means sitting for months possibly years in jail awaiting your day in court which you may not win. It's a gamble few are willing to take. Especially on minor crimes where the actual sentence will typically be a little bit less than what it takes to get a trial going.

I can't speak much for the civil proceedings (lawsuits and such) as I have almost never had to deal with them other than being a witness when a family sued the ever loving fuck out of a drug dealer (and won BTW).

If I could make a change? 'speed it the hell up'

 

[Katherine Kerensky]

Something to make justice better? Kanaa, Kanaa...

Spoiler: This.

Yes, I would unleash the Judges to make justice better. It stops stupid law suits.
Deals with criminals fast and mercilessly.
Not much else I can say... just bring in police that are judge, jury, and executioner...

 

[DkLnBr]

Not sure where you're getting your statistics as well

Statistics? none. These are all my observations, which is why i knew there was bound to be some glaring flaws. This is why I wanted people with experience to point out problems; so that I could refine my ideas so that they get better in the future. So in other words, thanks you for helping me =D

Something to make justice better? Kanaa, Kanaa...

Spoiler: This.

Yes, I would unleash the Judges to make justice better. It stops stupid law suits.
Deals with criminals fast and mercilessly.
Not much else I can say... just bring in police that are judge, jury, and executioner...

Awesome, you get even more bonus point for that

 

[Sajuuk-khar]

Why? if there is enough evidence to get you into the court room in the first place, then why are you still seen as innocent? It just seems better to have "this is what we've found. Explain yourself" instead of "this is what we've found, this is why its bad".

Because nobody ever got tried with half-assed evidence, lying witnesses or on not much more than 'chance they did it'.

Guilty until proven otherwise is a very slippery slope. It also won't exactly motivate investigators to find more evidence; if the first pieces vaguely connect someone they 'win' even though there might be a lot more that proves otherwise. You're expecting the suspect to go out investigate to prove his innocence?

 

[paragon1]

Frankly, I've always been of the opinion that we should be putting more effort into making less crime happen in the first place. In most cases, by the time the police have to do their jobs, society has just about completely failed.

But to answer your question: I'd increase the training that police officers receive so that they'd be less likely to make mistakes, and I'd greatly increase the number of judges, clerks and other public servants so that we wouldn't have so much strain on that part of the system.

 

[ace_of_something]

But to answer your question: I'd increase the training that police officers receive so that they'd be less likely to make mistakes, and I'd greatly increase the number of judges, clerks and other public servants so that we wouldn't have so much strain on that part of the system.

Now, I certainly understand it was not your intent to come off as if you think cops are ill trained but I'll make it clear.... your average police officer in this day and age has 8 months of training before he even gets a badge. Followed by a probationary period where he/she is watched like a hawk in most departments lasting a year or year and a half and is often paired with someone more experianced instead of going it alone, in a way this is also training. How many other occupations can you say do you have 20-26 months of formal training for?

No matter how much training police are to recieve mistakes will be made. You can't be perfect.
Though as I said before, I understand the point you're trying to make that more education and training means better quality officers, and it's a valid one.

I got to say in a world with more money I totally agree with the idea of having more courts and the like. Did you know on a given day in any court-room they schedual more courts than they could possibly have because it's assumed so many people will not show up for court? (Which is illegal by the way)
Because of the way people are that has to be done to ensure effective use of time. Tell me that's not messed up... yeah you can't.

 

[iLikeHippos]

Hmmmmmm....

Well, I'm clueless.
All of my ideas only lead to "Public executions" or mind-reading powers for the judges.

All and all, both are effective in their own way. And both got terrible consequences.

 

[paragon1]

But to answer your question: I'd increase the training that police officers receive so that they'd be less likely to make mistakes, and I'd greatly increase the number of judges, clerks and other public servants so that we wouldn't have so much strain on that part of the system.

Now, I certainly understand it was not your intent to come off as if you think cops are ill trained but I'll make it clear.... your average police officer in this day and age has 8 months of training before he even gets a badge. Followed by a probationary period where he/she is watched like a hawk in most departments lasting a year or year and a half and is often paired with someone more experianced instead of going it alone, in a way this is also training. How many other occupations can you say do you have 20-26 months of formal training for?

No matter how much training police are to recieve mistakes will be made. You can't be perfect.
Though as I said before, I understand the point you're trying to make that more education and training means better quality officers, and it's a valid one.

I got to say in a world with more money I totally agree with the idea of having more courts and the like. Did you know on a given day in any court-room they schedual more courts than they could possibly have because it's assumed so many people will not show up for court? (Which is illegal by the way)
Because of the way people are that has to be done to ensure effective use of time. Tell me that's not messed up... yeah you can't.

Yeah, that's pretty messed up. Your right, I certainly did not mean to imply that U.S. police officers are well trained. Quite the opposite, I know for a fact that we have some of the best police in the world, and I'm really really really glad we don't have the same quality police as some other places (almost every country in South America for example).
And it would be very expensive to increase the size of the courts, but then so would just about every other solution. If you can think of one that doesn't, tell me. Actually, skip telling me. Go straight to your bosses and tell them. The whole country will thank you for it.

 

[Ironic Pirate]

Speaking as someone very familiar with criminal proceedings I will tell you this.

Oh yeah, I remember you talking about being a cop.

OT: Innocent until proven guilty works because otherwise people would be wrongfully incarcerated. The criminal may never commit the crime again, but a jailed innocent person's life would be ruined.

 

[sephiroth1991]

A eye for eye, basicully what you did happens to you.

or just have a system like minority report

 

[Gladion]

Also, bonus points for anyone who can think of something to stop stupid lawsuits, like the ones that involve a lack of common sense (like a guy walking on train tracks with his headphones on, or a robber suing a homeowner if he gets hurt while breaking in)

Well, it's not that hard, actually. Just take common sense for granted. In Germany, if you'd go and try to report the train driver to the police because you were almost hit by the train when you had your headphones on they'd just laugh at you and tell you to get the fuck out.
I think this is the one single thing this country does not have a law for, but I might be wrong on that.

 

[Kollega]

My thoughts on how to make it that little bit better (in my eyes) is to change "innocent until proven guilty" into " guilty until proven innocent".

Such a great, intellegent idea! We should also institute labor camps and centralized survelliance network while we're at it.

To give an analogy: "guilty untill proven innocent", i.e. "treat everyone like a criminal" is what PC gaming industry does to it's customers these days. Get it now, or what?

OT: I know it would cost a very very big amount of money, but why not create special "light regime" prisons where only minor offenders with minimal sentences would be kept? You know, away from seasoned robbers and gangsters. Maybe it would help said minor offenders to bounce back from a life of crime rather than get sucked into it? Of course it's in "broad strokes", and i may be wrong, but this sounds like a good idea to me.

 

[Fenreil]

What would make justice better? Serving it with ice cream.
Sorry, that's the first thing that popped into my head after reading the title.

Anyway, I'd have to say "Guilty until proven innocent" is ridiculous. It would so easy to pin crimes on people who had nothing to do with what was going on. Plus that would mean that we would(probably) change how we deal with suspects entirely. Let's do whatever we want to this guy we just arrested because he's guilty right now.

I read an interesting article on how the death penalty is really expensive and ignoring any political or moral bias, I think it would be a good idea to scrap the program or revise it and use the money to improve other areas of the justice system.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/03/27/just-cost-death-penalty-killer-state-budgets/?test=latestnews