As law enforcement you are always put in harms way. You step into violent, hairy, messy situations and try to work out the best possible solution. You are the first line of fixers in society. In my opinion, a law enforcement officer makes all of the tough decisions, hard work and mostly correct arrests. After that; in the judicial system, things can get quite muddied. From the jail nurse, to the magistrate, to attorneys and so on. The system is far from perfect. The court system is where I personally found shortcomings. I may have charged a person with five or six crimes where three of the offenses were felonies but if that person pleaded guilty to the agreed upon felony; amongst the attorneys mind you, all the rest of the charges would be dismissed as if they didn’t happen. I called this practice a ‘joke’ and a ‘dog and pony show’ but I also found this process necessary because if I didn’t charge someone with everything I could there might be some loophole to get them off scott-free. Also beware, if you had to go on the stand and testify for anything you often could only answer yes and no questions. Your integrity was always tested and the defense was quite masterful at twisting your words to make the public think your arrest or citation was unlawful. You were definitely on the hot seat, I hated court. And I can’t stand lawyers who seem to purposely attempt to skewer an officer’s reputation. In the justice system we are supposed to be working together to better society even if you are a defense attorney! There were some attorneys I highly respected even if I lost a case against them, why? They treated me like another human being; with respect, not like an enemy to utterly destroy. Judges have a very hard job too. They often have piercing insight and cut right to the heart of an issue exposing criminals at face value but sometimes the system fails and they are forced to let go of a known criminal even if they want to put the person away for life.
Book Teaser #2 - The Justice System..?
Updated: Oct 22, 2020
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