Monday, June 04, 2007
In Our Courts - Plea Bargains
The legal system has changed...
In the New York Sun, Mark Steyn gives his take on it:
"Point one: I'm amazed at how few trials there are. The federal courthouse isn't one of these 19th century deals with pillars, it's a Mies van der Rohe office block built in the Sixties and I'm in a courtroom on the 12th floor. There are two other courtrooms on the same corridor and gazillions more on the floors above and no trials are going on in any of them but ours. If you want to get away from the media hubbub of the Black trial and find a quiet corner to snore the afternoon away, the best place to go is one of the other courtrooms. You could hunt buffalo on the vast empty plains of these courts. There are no trials taking place. Trial by jury, which is one of the most fundamental rights extending back through the U.S. Constitution to English Common Law and the Roman Empire and the Athenian Republic, is in terminal decline in this country."
