From the grand marble columns to the number of pages in a “brief” our system of justice in the US is designed to bully and intimidate. Those with resources nearly always win every case because justice, dignity, and ethics are not valued in our courts systems. Rather we merely attempt to follow an arcane and Kafkaesque system of laws.
The obvious solution is to modernize, to reform, to add a modicum of human values to the system. It is nearly as obvious that such reform is impossible and people like me are tilting at windmills and wasting our efforts by trying to change the world.
To begin with, the majority of people who have jobs or other steady income think the system works and have very little contact with the vast numbers of people who have intimate contact with the courts and know the truth from personal experience. There is a class of people who assume anyone with contact with the courts is guilty. We have seen the television shows which almost always show the true corruption and dysfunction of the courts, police and government. But if we believe the system is broken there is no evidence of our beliefs. It is true, but we are unwilling to change.
We can debate and prove deep systemic problems but that time is over. We need ethical people in a justice system which will seek to solve human problems in a system that can handle complicated issues on a case by case basis.