There was a time when if someone committed a public crime, community vigilantes would batter ram down the criminal's front door and drag them out to the center of town and try them before an authentic jury of their peers. Most of the time if the crime was harsh enough, so would the penalty be. If it were murder, the criminal would face death that day if not the very next.

If the crime were petty theft, the criminal would make retributions right away with the entire town as a witness. Depending on the crime, the punishment would equally fit because justice was served using common sense and gut intuition, contrary to what the procedures of crime and punishment are today.

In today's criminal justice system, it takes months sometimes years before sentence is passed for the criminal. No longer is punishment determined using common sense or gut intuition, but is determined by emotion and careful consideration on behave of the criminal's past and upbringing, and no more does the punishment fit the crime.

If someone is tried for murder and found guilty, even if they are sentenced to death, the execution does not take place for another five to 10 years. And while the criminal awaits execution, they enjoy moderate living arrangements including cable TV, three USDA approved meals a day (more than some free and working people enjoy), and a warm bed and worry-free sleep without the added stress of paying bills and taxes.

At one time unadulterated ethics guided the principles of law and social order. Society believed and agreed together that a person should only be punished if they are definitely found guilty of the crime accused of. If so, even the criminal mind then had a conscience, which would eventually lead them to confess.

Today our consciences are seared and people believe that if they (with the help of a liberal judge and an equally conscious-seared lawyer) can spark the slightest doubt in a jury's decision, they can get away with anything. Or if they can provide enough evidence that someone or something drove them to commit the crime against their own will, then they could get off with little or no punishment.

Today, people get away with murder, fleeing criminals are rarely caught, children are kidnapped everyday and found either dead or years later, business people rob millions from companies without punishment, drugs flood the country unchecked, guns are bought and sold on the black-market like candy bars, victims are raped by neighbors, teachers, police, spouses, even clergy, and only half the incidents are reported. Cops are criminals (and some based on their own personal prejudices), judges are incompetent and easily swayed by public opinion, mayors and governors bribe and cheat, politicians launder, perjure, and swindle. Even Presidents.

Kids are killing friends, classmates, and school faculty, church leaders commit acts of blasphemy by making God's word a tool to get rich, doctors illegally abort babies of underage girls, state agencies and banking institutions charge what they want for services, taxes and fees for poor service and hide behind policies and procedures backed by the courts while consumers have to accept financial losses. Automobile mechanics, housing contractors, electronics' technicians, and many other specialized professionals take advantage of the customer's ignorance and overcharge and over-estimate, while providing poor and many times incomplete or incorrect services.

Frivolous law suits rise, corporate and independent lawyers knowingly protect guilty criminals, judges and juries convict and sentence innocent people, while allowing the guilty to go free, the accused are guilty before proven innocent, jurors debate opinion rather than fact, prisons incarcerate and criminally indoctrinate rather than rehabilitate. Hollywood glamorizes the criminally insane, the news media are overly anxious to get the story thereby presumptuously accuse the innocent, the public is thereafter subconsciously fed stereotypes that label certain races and genders as prone to certain crimes more than others.

Modern culture is a mixture of law and natural-core morals, and if the system of law breaks down so do those morals. Because social structure is based on discipline of human will, if that human will is prostituted by the very authority that establishes social law, the social structure will soon break down and chaos will slowly prevail giving rise to a society of complete corruption. And because a return to raw intelligence and basic common sense can only come either after the annihilation of a nation or at the beginning of one, the fate of America's judicial system and culture is currently irretrievable.

© 2003 by C.R. Hamilton