It came out yesterday that Stephen Feldman, the attorney for David Westerfield, was just about to ink a deal that would send his client to prison for life, and avoid the court case.  The deal was this, David would be granted life imprisonment if he would tell authorities where the body was.  By this very realization David must therefore admit that he was the one that murdered…or was at least aware of the murder of the child.  Wouldn’t that mean, then, that Stephen Feldman was also aware of the guilt of his client?  After all it was he that was setting up the plea bargain.

Now if Stephen Feldman were a real man, a moral man, a true person, instead of some bottom dwelling slug type thing, he would have made it very easy for David Westerfield by simply telling David to plead guilt and throw himself on the mercy of the court.  If David was unwilling to accept this, then Stephen should have not represented him and left the case.

Instead what we get is 4 months of lies from the attorney.  He, instead, tries to trick the jury into believing that David Westerfield is innocent, even though he knows that the man is guilty.  He calls in witnesses to confuse the jury.  He tries every tactic he can manage to conjure up to confuse those people.  And what happens?  The jury deliberates for more than a week about the guilt of Westerfield.  They were stuck on some point somewhere and that sticking point could have been all avoided by some honesty in the legal system.  As was already said to Feldman’s mother, “Aren’t you proud of your son, now?”

I think that’s what upsets me the most.  That lying is okay in the legal system.  That these cretins actually believe that in order to protect the constitution they are afforded the ability to lie and confuse. 

They are allowed the ability to know the true!  That’s right, they are allowed the truth, but the 12 people who sit on the jury are just members of the studio audience!

Jury’s are harassed into service by intimidation and threat of legal repercussions.  Then once there they are offered two separate television scripts; one for the defense and one for the prosecution.  Then they are forced to sit there in silence while these master puppeteers dangle evidence in front of them.  And at the end of this terribly scripted story, where one side, or both sides, are lying, the judge, who should know better, tells them to go sit in a room and decide someone’s fate.

The whole system is bent on deception.  The Judge decides what is evidence and what is not.  In the case of Westerfield, this Mudd character says that David ready to show the authorities where the body is, can not be added as valid evidence.  That is deception, which is defined as hiding the truth.

What utterly disturbs me is that the silly system attempts to make adults out of us, by forcing us to live by its rules and laws, but the very system is full of adolescent idealists, that apparently never mentally escaped college life.  They tell us where to go, what to do, what to think, when to think it, how to think it.  And if we stand up and call foul, they whine about it like 4 year olds, and if you do it where they can reach out and grab you, you might just find yourself in jail on contempt count.  Fuck the court.  Screw the system.  It’s arcane and backwards. 

It could be fixed…easily.

The judge should just be that, a wise keeper of the peace.  A council for all sides, who instructs the participants in the manner and meaning of the law.  Not some blow hole that thinks that his black robe offers him some superior position in society.  Judges are no more sovereign than you and I.  They have no more rights.  They have no more skills.  They have no more interest in the nature and purpose of us all.  If you are religious (which I am not) then you might even add that judges do not know god better than you.  They are not special.  And the very fact that a judge can force you to appear in his house of worship (court) is an infringement on your constitutional freedoms.  He has no right to force his religion on you.

The lawyers should be ethical.  And what amazes me is that I actually have to say that.  They should be responsible for offering truth and truth alone.  Most importantly these lawyers shouldn’t be allowed to write scripts and run the court like a badly played television sitcom.  It should be just about presenting the truth.  Guilt or innocence should be a by-product of that quest for truth, not the whole reason for existence. 

And what of the jury?  Should they really just be dunces that sit and listen?  If they are valuable to the service of the system, why then can’t they ask questions, offer opinions?  In the Grand Jury all the members are jury members and they are allowed to offer something back into the conversation.  The supreme Court is the same  in that each justice sits as a member of the jury, with his own feelings and opinions…why are we civilians treated differently?  Juries should be allowed rebuttal and arguments.  They should be allowed the ability to offer questions when a lawyer attempts a disarm that seems impossible.  They shouldn’t be told to disregard statements, unless the judge can offer a reason for this position.  They should be just as important as the rest of the members of the court room.  Instead of just being fodder for the process.

The system is fouled and stinks of rot.  The burst open guts of life are dying at the razors of lawyers and we allow it.  Everyday we’re being told to shape up, fit in, grow up, be adult…and on it goes, but not once do those sharp teeth ever taste their own flesh.  They are a scourge, these law creatures.  They are the true evil of this world…

but since the planet seems peopled with sheep…

I doubt anything will ever become of it.

Why do I even bother.