Ham Sandwich Nation

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While I disagree with the implication that even a reformed grand jury system is the way to deal with it, I otherwise agree with almost everything Glenn Harlan Reynolds writes in Ham Sandwich Nation: Due Process When Everything Is a Crime.

As former chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals, Sol Wachtler, was famously quoted in Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities, "a grand jury would 'indict a ham sandwich,' if that's what you wanted.” (Notably, Wachtler said this before he was charged with extortion, racketeering, and blackmail.)

I especially agree with Reynolds on this:
"Our criminal justice system, as presently practiced, is basically a plea-bargain system with actual trials of guilt or innocence a bit of showy froth floating on top."
Check out the six page paper here at SSRN. 

Prison

Many of you know that I'm a prison abolitionist. I have to admit, though, that sometimes this position is tested when people who really, really deserve to be locked up in a cage do, indeed, get locked up.

Being conflicted about another human being locked up in a cage in a way that we don't even treat animals, however, doesn't translate to my being delighted that this former ER doc had his medical license automatically suspended due to the felony convictions. (It's a little unclear from his record whether his 2001 malpractice judgment for $138,943.25 also resulted in a license suspension.)

Gotta hand the homicidal maniac this, though: he does seem to like to go to trial. He went to trial and lost in the 2001 malpractice case, and still decided to try to even his record to 50/50 in the criminal case.