As much as we talk about the importance of the rule of law, we don't seem to really like it. And while due process has taken centuries to evolve, and has been central to the gradual restraint of arbitrary governing powers, we seem to support arbitrary power when it suit us. As with many other things, the public seem conflicted. We don't seem to believe that our legal system, based on due process, provides justice. We must go beyond the law to achieve justice. This is a contradiction and heads us down to the path to vigilantism and arbitrary justice (Texas Justice!).
Here's commentary to that effect in regards to the merits of a new show about the Supreme Court: Outlaw:
I wasn't particularly bothered by the show's mangled legal universe, a world in which wiretapping is conveniently permissible so long as the conversations are "patently illegal," and evidence of actual innocence is magically admissible in death-penalty cases because, um, one time it was legal in a tort case. Nobody is going to make a show about successive habeas petitions interesting. The real sin of Outlaw isn't the bad writing or the gratuitous sexism or the liberties it takes with the rules of evidence. It's the cynical view of the legal system, a view that holds that the law is fundamentally unjust and lawyers must go outside the system if they are ever to achieve moral results.
When Justice Garza departs the Supreme Court, he does so with a lofty-sounding speech about how he "used to be satisfied being cautious and neutral—being Switzerland." Garza says he's spent years mechanically applying "the law," but now he's ready to get out there and change things. Or as he puts it: "Following the rules doesn't always lead to justice. When that happens, you've got to change the rules."
The problem isn't that Garza turns to lawyering in order to help people. It's that the way he goes about changing the law seems to be by breaking it. His private eye gets hold of classified information the old fashioned way: "by flashing my boobs." His clerks track down a reluctant witness with illegal wiretaps. So he's not just saying that justices can't deliver justice. He's saying that the only way to deliver justice is through a life of crime.
Perhaps you agree with the sentiment?
