The Law is Wrong!

I'm no lawyer but I think that there is a critical flaw in the law against criminals and serving a multitude of injustices against victims time and again. How many times have we seen people 'get away with murder' literally where the law sets the seemingly guilty free to create more havoc and crime. We see it all the time, where if you had enough money you can hire a star defence lawyer to help you get your freedom even if you are guilty. Many people for the want of trusting our legal system do refrain from going overboard with criticising a seemingly unjustified verdict but more times than not, the law, defence lawyers and the jury are just plain wrong!

The part of the law that I have difficulty swallowing is that a person is normally proven guilty 'beyond a reasonable doubt'. This means that if there is a 'reasonable' doubt of the person's guilt, then the defendant should not be found guilty. The problem is there is no definition of reasonable. What does reasonable mean? It could mean one thing to you and another to me. According to the dictionary, 'reasonable' means: showing reason or sound judgment and not excessive or extreme. Now you can see that those definitions does not make it any clearer as far as the law is concerned as to what 'reasonable' really means. What is of excess to me may not be of excess to another person, meaning if I thought a rapist who had raped ten times before most probably guilty but another person on the jury may think this is not sound judgement and the past is no indicator of the current facts presented in the current case. One may think that past indiscretions may be a good indicator of current indiscretions and think this is reasonable deduction whilst another may think this is unreasonable. It only takes one jury member to have any doubt for a defendant to be found not guilty. With the plethora of 'technical' arguments, the defence lawyers are capable of puting a multitude of doubts into the minds of the jury. Remember, the defence lawyers are skilled lawyers who defend criminals and manipulate juries everyday for a living and the jury are common people who for many find themselves in court for the very first time.

It's not that we should not have defence lawyers. That would be unreasonable as who would defend the defendants? It's also not that I don't think defendants should receive a fair trial, that would be an injustice. It's just that we have seen too many instances where we have seen injustices against victims where the thugs and murderers get away scot free and the victims and sometimes their families get a life sentence. Who can forget the case of Matt Butcher, the cop who was head butted from behind by a cowardly thug and found himslef paralysed over half his body, all for doing his job. What did his attacker get for his cowardly attack? Nothing, he got away scot free and the defence lawyers insist that the common man not present in the courts would not understand the jury's decision as they did not hear both sides of the story, even though there was video evidence of the whole incident, which the public saw and based their views on. The defence lawyers are asking us to put our trust in them and the law as we as common people will not understand the 'technicalities'. Then explain to us! I bet you they can't. I'm afraid, they're just justifying their abhorrent acts, getting their clients freedom with their ability to find loop holes and technicalities in the already flawed law.

We've seen one too many suspended sentences, only to see the defendant commit another crime immediately after getting his freedom. We've seen a one and the half year jail sentence for taking another person's life while you may get three years for missing a digit on your tax return. The law needs to change with tougher penalties and securing a conviction should not be as Herculean as it currently is. The counter argument is, what if we put an innocent man to jail? That's not what I want. Trying to make a conviction not as challenging does not necessarily mean that more innocent people will go to jail. There should be appropriate changes made as the law is too much in favor of the defendant. I'm just asking for some balance back in favor of the victim, then maybe we can see more justice served!