It was just announced that the prisoners from Gitmo will be brought to a maximum security prison in Illinois. It won’t happen quickly because the law is in the way. It happens to be against the law to bring enemy combatants, captured outside the country, into the country for imprisonment and trial. But no problem, the lawmakers (lawyers) will just change the law!
We are reminded in the news almost everyday that we are a nation of laws. During the torture debate this was often said. When a murderer is freed because he wasn’t read his Miranda rights, the ACLU and others salute our commitment to the law. That all sounds good, but from where I sit I have come to believe that we are first a nation of lawyers, then the law.
In America justice goes to the side with the most powerful attorneys. In the famous OJ trial, he did not get off because the jury was part black. He was freed because he had the money to pay for high-powered lawyers. It did not matter whether he was guilty or innocent. They say that justice should be color blind. I don’t know how it’s going with the black and white issue, but green rules in the courts!
It’s true that prison inmates are disportionately black, but I don’t think it is because of racism alone. I believe the majority of prisoners simply did not get the best representation.
In politics it takes lawyers to write laws. This bothers me more than a little. It is also the primary reason I don’t like lawyers to be elected for office. Most presidents are lawyers (Obama), most of the senate is made up of lawyers, the house is full of lawyers, and don’t forget the Supreme Court – all lawyers. Right now every branch of government is controlled by lawyers.
I dread the coming terrorists trial in NY. KSM has signed his confession of being responsible for masterminding 9/11. He deserves to be executed and right away. Who knows what will happen during this show trial? One thing is for sure, some lawyers will become rich and famous, and taxpayers will pay for all of it.
It’s not surprising that there is no tort reform in any of the healthcare bills. Without question, lawsuits have driven up healthcare and insurance costs. Congress is the last place to expect lawyers to be held accountable or limited in any way.
Obama is determined to reverse much of Bush’s agenda. Even though Guantanamo Bay is the best and newest facility in the world to house terrorists and other prisoners, they will be brought to the good ole Midwest for political payback. Any laws prohibiting this will just be changed if necessary to fulfill the political agenda. It is that easy for lawyers.
It is not that easy for you and me. I can’t even get a break on minor traffic violations. “Sorry Mr. Watson, it’s the law.” For the average citizen this is a nation of laws, and we are proud of it. The sad fact is that once you are in the courts or congress it becomes a nation of lawyers. Will you join me in the next elections, local and national, to vote against the incumbents and lawyers? This will bring us all the reform we need.
Tags: gitmo, laws, lawyers, racism, terrorists
What a great question; are we a nation of laws or lawyers? When I was in grade school in the 40′s and 50′s, we were taught that we were a nation of laws. That bills became laws after a majority of the congress voted for the bill and then the President signed the law. If it turned out that there were problems with the law or enough people objected to the law; the law was still the law until changed by the Congress and the president.
I think that was generally true then but it isn’t now. The law is what some judge says it is even if his decision sounds nothing like the written words of the law. I have learned that there are Judicial philosophies and that a judge is free to make his decision based on any of these philosophies that may have nothing to do with the written law!
I have a niece that is a lawyer and when she was in law school she told me that a “law” was not a “law” after being voted on by Congress and signed by the President. She said that a law was only a law after a case regarding the law came before a judge and the judge ruled on what the law meant, and she was not talking about the Supreme Court!
One of the things I tried to tell my niece (she could have cared less what I said.
), was that only if the written law meant what it said are we a free people. If the law can be “interpreted” any way a judge decides, then we are not a democracy or a republic, we have an oligarchy for a government (the Supreme Court) and we are all slaves to the government.
To finish, I must disagree about the OJ Simpson case. While many say that he was guilty and got off because he could afford high price lawyers, that is not true. I watched the entire OJ case on the legal channel. There were many things that came out at the trial that were never reported on by any of the media.
The trial not only did not prove that OJ killed anyone, it also proved that he couldn’t have killed his x-wife and her boyfriend. The prosecution medical examiner said that due to the many cuts and bruises on Ron Goldman’s body that he must have put up a terrific fight for his life. That being the case, there would have to be marks and bruises on the killers body.
When OJ was arrested 1 or 2 days after the murders, his lawyers made the police take pictures of OJ’s entire body in the nude. There was not 1 mark or bruise anywhere on his body. OJ could not have killed Ron Goldman. All of the supposed blood evidence was refuted by the scientist who won the Nobel Prize for developing DNA testing. There were no samples of OJ’s blood (and he had no cuts to bleed from except a tiny jagged cut on his little finger.). There were samples of unknown blood that the prosecution said was a mixture of OJ’s and Nicole’s blood.
The Nobel winning scientist said that the technology had not reached a level where you could take an unknown sample and say it was a mixture of 2 known people’s blood. The most egregious thing that the prosecution did was to plant a bloody sock as supposed evidence.
They inspected OJ’s house immediately after the police were called to the scene. His house was immaculate except for 1 black sock found just outside the bathroom. The criminologist that bagged the sock said he did not see any blood on the sock at the time. The prosecution medical examiner said that there were blood “spatters” on the area of the sock that would be between the cuff of the pants and the top of an oxford type shoe. He said that this was consistent with arterial bleeding that Nicole would have had when her throat was cut.
OJ had Dr. Bodden, a renowned medical examiner testify about the sock. Dr. Bodden not only testified, he put the sock on an overhead projector and projected it on the wall. Everyone could see that there were no “spatters”. What there was, was a round smear of blood in the ankle area of the sock and on the opposite side of the sock was a smaller and fainter blood stain.
Dr. Bodden testified and everyone could see that the only conclusion was that someone smeared blood on 1 side of the sock and that as the sock laid somewhere, the blood transferred to the other side. The other obvious conclusion was that no one’s foot was in the sock at the time the blood was smeared onto the sock. I am amazed that the prosecution had such gall to put the sock up for evidence when it was such an obvious plant.
Part of the problem is that the media did not want people to think that OJ was innocent. Otherwise they would have reported what I just talked about. I don’t know why. When I’ve talked to people about this and explained things it has never made a difference in the other persons opinion. The only thing that I can think is that people wanted OJ to be guilty and didn’t care about any of the facts in the case.
Thanks Bill for bringing up this interesting and very important subject of the law vs. lawyers.