"The American justice system has issues, but it fundamentally works. The jury system is sound. Juries are people of good will and have common sense."
This system "fundamentally works" if you have the money to make it work for you. Most individuals, small and medium businesses simply cannot afford the cost of seeking justice. In my opinion this is true of civil, business an criminal law.
Example:
Back when I was younger and far dumber I client stiffed me for about $125K of work. Of course, off I went to a lawyer. By the time I spent about $8,000 in legal fees I realized that all I was doing was paying for my attorney and their attorney to write what I came to call "love letters" to each other. I called them "love letters" because every time they wrote one, regardless of content, they got paid handsomely by both parties. I decided to lick my wounds and move on. Good thing I did. The client ultimately filed for bankruptcy protection and stiffed a bunch of other businesses out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. They formed a new corp pretty much in parallel and have been operating ever since.
Would money have made a difference here? Maybe. Don't know. I had a similar situation with a large (multi-billion dollar global corp) that cause us huge damage. There was simply no way to go after them without putting-up at least $500K in the bank for legal fees. Not a fight I could have considered. And so, even though they were decidedly in the wrong, they, effectively, "wrote their own laws" or were able to ignore them because they could fight a fight I couldn't even begin to consider.
What I do know is that it sure felt like there was a huge asymmetry in justice. It's almost like one can exist in this parallel universe where the practical result was that laws simply were not applied in the same way to those with less money to "buy" justice.
"The American justice system has issues, but it fundamentally works. The jury system is sound. Juries are people of good will and have common sense."
This system "fundamentally works" if you have the money to make it work for you. Most individuals, small and medium businesses simply cannot afford the cost of seeking justice. In my opinion this is true of civil, business an criminal law.
Example:
Back when I was younger and far dumber I client stiffed me for about $125K of work. Of course, off I went to a lawyer. By the time I spent about $8,000 in legal fees I realized that all I was doing was paying for my attorney and their attorney to write what I came to call "love letters" to each other. I called them "love letters" because every time they wrote one, regardless of content, they got paid handsomely by both parties. I decided to lick my wounds and move on. Good thing I did. The client ultimately filed for bankruptcy protection and stiffed a bunch of other businesses out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. They formed a new corp pretty much in parallel and have been operating ever since.
Would money have made a difference here? Maybe. Don't know. I had a similar situation with a large (multi-billion dollar global corp) that cause us huge damage. There was simply no way to go after them without putting-up at least $500K in the bank for legal fees. Not a fight I could have considered. And so, even though they were decidedly in the wrong, they, effectively, "wrote their own laws" or were able to ignore them because they could fight a fight I couldn't even begin to consider.
What I do know is that it sure felt like there was a huge asymmetry in justice. It's almost like one can exist in this parallel universe where the practical result was that laws simply were not applied in the same way to those with less money to "buy" justice.