Published: May 24, 2006 10:50 am      

Legal system isn’t perfect, but it works

There have been a few high-profile local court cases in recent years involving three main ingredients: Drinking, driving and death.

Beyond those three, the particular circumstances in each instance have been varied. One of the variable is the way the court system has addressed each guilty party. The freedom to handle these cases individually is granted by Iowa statute and, with different judges presiding, is only to be expected.

We’re sure that all of the drivers involved in such incidents did not get into their cars with the intention of taking a life, either that of a passenger or another driver, but that was the end result. And ultimately, if guilt is determined by verdict or admission, a judge must decide what to do for punishment.

But it’s not just about punishing the driver for their actions — the knowledge that a life is lost may be more punishing than anything the state can impose. It’s also about getting treatment to prevent further substance abuse as well as setting an example for other people to follow.

The logic — the same reasoning that led Romans to crucify criminals on a hill and had Colonial Americans throwing offenders in stocks in the town square — is that average folks will see what happened to the offender and decide to walk the straight and narrow to avoid the same fate.

Does it work? Well, turn to the crime watch on page 7A of today’s paper. Don’t just look at the operating while intoxicated arrests, look at everything. There are names of several people arrested for allegedly committing crimes although they had full knowledge of the potential consequences. It happens every day in every town in every country in the world. That’s why we have police officers, lawyers, judges and prison guards.

It’s also why we’ve developed things like halfway houses and residential correctional facilities, because we as a society are trying to cut down on recidivism. It’s not about being soft on crime, it’s about trying to have compassion and getting people returned to being productive members of society. That’s why it’s called the Department of Corrections and not the Department of Kill ’Em All and Let God Sort ’Em Out.

Whenever someone dies and the facts surrounding the death end up in a courtroom, emotions take control of the parties involved. That’s understandable and expected. But we must refrain from blaming any one lawyer, any one judge or any one offender for how a decision affects a particular family. There’s an entire system at work here, and such things aren’t always geared to address individual needs.

So where do we go from here? Our advice is to stop breaking laws. Easy to say, of course, and impossible to believe. But no matter how long and hard we seek a solution, no one will ever be able to find a way to make people behave and follow the rules. And so we’re stuck with our system of arrests, prosecutions, trials, convictions and sentences.

It’s never perfect and it’s occasionally flat wrong. But it’s the best we’ve got and, stacked up against all of recorded history, it’s a pretty fair shake for most people involved. We just have to trust the people involved are doing their jobs to the best of their ability and hope justice prevails in the end.

You can call it blind idealism. We call it America, and we’re pretty satisfied with that.