The Legal System is Broken

Here is a top notch law professor telling an audience "never talk to the cops" and "even if you are innocent, never talk to the cops". He goes on to show top legal minds, even Justices of the US Supreme Court tell you "never talk to the cops".

Amazing, eh? But it is true. The system is broken. The legal system is set up such that there is no benefit to you, a law-abiding citizen, to ever cooperate with the police. Top lawyers, even Supreme Court Justices, tell you this. If that isn't a broken system, I don't know what is.

See for yourself:



What is the benefit of a system which is so skewed that rational people have to refuse to cooperate for fear of being wrongfully convicted of a crime? How can it be cost effective or efficient or fair or serve justice to have such a system? The video is clever and amusing, but it is a tragedy. It shows a dysfunctional system. One in which you can never line up your self interest with the collective interest. Where you need to always look out for "number one" and never trust, collaborate, or cooperate with agents of the state. Crazy!

Now... Here's the other half where a police investigator tells you exactly how the police entrap you:



Notice his pride in how he tricks people into convictions. Notice that he happily admits the he lies as part of his entrapment techniques (e.g. convince them to write an "apology letter" to reduce their sentence while intending all along to use it as a "written confession" to seal their fate). Notice his disrespect for the "criminals" (by the way, since when is the cop given the write to be the jury and decide guilt and innocence?). Notice how he evinces a sense of entitlement and cleverness and superiority. I find it telling that he is convinced that dressing up and looking "professional" is good evidence of innocence. He's convinced that anybody who doesn't dress up is guilty. (He admits that there are very elegantly dressed criminals in the upper echelons of business, but it is pretty clear he is quite satisfied to go after the poor who -- by their very clothes, bearing, language, etc. -- "prove" that they are guilty. I guess he knows that in the pecking order, cops aren't going to win against the well-heeled criminals, so he stick to those lower on the pecking order to enforce his alpha-male version of "justice".)

So... two videos. Two sides of the legal system. Pathetic. Disgusting. Completely dysfunctional but these cogs in the system show no sense of failure or need for reform. This wretched system puts bread on their table and they are quite pleased with that.