Raising The Bar

So, besides The Office, which I'm happy to say starts a new season this month, I have a new favorite TV show. I'm a junkie for politically charged movies... I watched Thirteen Days this morning... but also for legal TV. Not Judge Judy or The People's Court, but definitely Law and Order. However, Law and Order may have been replaced by a new series on TNT called Raising the Bar. The first ever episode was on last week and the second episode is tonight. It's well done... Steven Bochco is the producer, but my favorite thing about the show is how it takes a real look at the fundamental dysfunctionality of our criminal justice system.

Some of you may get bored with this post, but for those of you who read, you will understand some of the reasons I have become more liberal in the past year or so. My opposition to the death penalty is the most obvious result of this understanding of the legal system, but more than that, I have realized that it's often the little guy that catches the raw end of the deal.

Let me explain. It's well understood that our legal system is based on an adversarial process with an impartial judge or a jury of the defendant's peers deciding whether the defendant is guilty or innocent. The problem, though, is that prosecutors have the incentive, political or otherwise, to win regardless of the real innocence or guilt of the defendant. Along with this, prosecutors have the power to set the parameters of a plea bargain, in which an innocent defendant is incentivized to plea out rather than take their chances at trial. Prosecutors often add on benign charges in hopes of getting the defendant to plea down to a lesser charge and thus avoid the costs of a trial.

Likewise, there are numerous circumstances where prosecutors again have the incentive to win the case and the D.A. needs to appear to be "tough on crime" for re-election purposes and defendants are convicted on coerced confessions or shaky testimony. Yes, I understand that many of these defendants are guilty anyways, but the costs of the legal system are the life imprisonment or worse of innocent people. The errors of the system are magnified in many instances because of the resource disparity between the government and a public defender. Thus, while I realize the legal system often gets it right in spite of itself, there are serious costs incurred that this show emphasizes.