American justice system fails everyone but criminals

Letter to the Editor:

Because most of our senators and congressmen are lawyers, it should come as no surprise that the laws these people pass are favorable to their profession. As a result of this dominance of lawyers in the crafting of our laws our justice system has become a travesty. Justice today is less a matter of protecting the innocent while punishing the guilty and more a matter of promoting, perpetuating and enriching lawyers.

At the same time there has been a relentless push to ban the death penalty for heinous crimes. Moreover, light sentences and probation seem to be the preferred penalties for many crimes these days. I suspect these trends are an effort by the justice industry to promote business for itself and maximize its profits by recycling criminals through the courts and jails.

It has become too common for repeat offenders (back on the streets due to lenient sentences, technicalities, or pardons) to rape, maim, rob or kill. In these cases, it seems to me, the judges, parole boards and defense attorneys responsible should be charged as accessories to these crimes.

The concept of punishment for crime has been replaced by the fantasy of rehabilitation for the criminal. Instead of punishment for crimes committed, criminals today enjoy a life free of toil and instead receive three balanced meals a day in a comfortable environment not much different from that in a country club.

Some crimes are so horrific they sometimes overwhelm our culture’s abhorrence for the death penalty. In these cases, though, there seems to be a growing insistence that the execution cause the criminal no discomfort. It seems to me, the punishment for a crime should be at least as painful to the perpetrator of that crime as it was for the victim of the crime. For capital crimes where guilt is not in doubt, I think the perpetrator should be executed without delay and without concern for pain and suffering. The appeal process should be banned and governors and presidents should not have the power to commute a criminal’s punishment. Our justice system has evolved into a circus where a death penalty can initiate an appeals process lasting decades and incur a cost to the taxpayers of millions of dollars. If our broken justice system is not restored, I think a return to the vigilante system is a real possibility.

— Bill Payne, Libby