If I have a positive view, it is not because I am naive. As a lawyer, I know enough about the legal system not to be gulled by propaganda designed to paint the United States out as an awful place whose basic institutions are rotten to the core, and where you have to be rich, white, etc. to get a fair deal. I got sick and tired many years ago of hearing that garbage from malcontents who resent this country--but not so much that they don't choose to live here.
Any system of criminal justice, however good, will inevitably imprison some innocent people. Some of those innocent people will inevitably serve long terms. But it is the very fact instances of that are so rare that they become such sensational stories when they do come to light. Most people jailed for crimes got what they deserved--and a great many who are in fact guilty go free because it was not possible to prove they were also legally guilty. Proving crimes in court is an elaborate process in which a great many things must be done just right, and everything is purposely weighted in favor of the defendant.
Corrupt police departments exist mostly in detective novels and old movies. With the federal government as involved in state and local affairs as it is today, there is far less of that kind of thing, and any police chief who scoffs at the law in any way is not likely to get away with it for long. Reporters love to expose misconduct like that. Any any private citizen who knows about it can report it to the state attorney general's office or the nearest U.S. Attorney's office. Both the L.A.P.D. and the L.A. Sheriff's Dept. have more than once been the subject of Justice Dept. investigations and oversight.
Judges have their own code of professional responsibility. Here in California there is a Code of Judicial Ethics, and the authorities who enforce it take it very seriously. It requires a judge who is biased in a case to disqualify himself. I think accusations of bias often come from lawyers who lost the case by not handling it well or by doing things that antagonized the judge. Even when antagonized, though, trial judges have to be pretty impartial. Any of them who rules arbitrarily is asking to get overturned on appeal--something trial judges would rather avoid.
Personal insults and flaming stops now
