Wonder how many people have been burned badly by the US justice system? In law school both at BYU and then later at the University of Minnesota, they slammed into us law students that law has very little to do with the truth nor with justice. It is about solving disputes and trying to determine the probability the such and such facts support contentions provided by whatever attorneys are involved. In many cases, those that involve plea bargaining, not even that is the standard. They just might want to get through a case quickly by having a weak willed defendant make a confession. The person could even be innocent in that situation.
A law professor at the U of Minnesota Irving Younger
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Younger had even gone so far as to say that trials are more theater than trying to get at the facts. It is the lawyer who weaves the best story that wins. And, that often is determined by how much money one side has against the other.
I also believe that the lawyers and law firms involved in the cases play a huge part in determining who wins as it seems that the lawyer with the best contacts to the social circles of the judge wins.
What do you think about all this? I was a student attorney in Minnesota in some cases where it seemed that if the lawyer was from an Ivy League school as well as a top law firm in an urban setting, that the judge, especially if from a rural area, would bend over backwards to see the story in terms of how the very well connected lawyer made his or her argument.
Do not get me wrong, juries are supposed to offset very clever attorneys. And, I believe very strongly in a well educated jury pool but then very careful monitoring of the jury so that there quest for the facts is not polluted by other influences. Just see it as extremely important that before people are put into juries they are well educated about the tricks and other manipulations by lawyers.
One of the reasons I wanted to become a law librarian was because of this. The access to common-sense information for everyday citizens.