The American practice of law requires acting, guise, knowledge, guts and chance. It is an adversarial system, which largely reflects the prevailing opinions and biases of the legal community, the corporate elites and the politically powerful. Success at law is measured by wins and billings and is therefore amoral—a game played much like poker—replete with bluffs, hunches and rules. The courtroom is an arena of contest and increasingly one of spectacle.
A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.
Robert Frost
Lawyers and judges like to use the rhetoric of justice and many of them believe what they say. However, when they declare that “justice has been served” they usually mean the rules were satisfied and a win was scored. However, not infrequently it is the loser who is most deserving of justice—as it was with every runaway slave who was lawfully returned to their owners by the courts prior to the end of the Civil War.
Justice cannot be conferred or codified. Like obscenity or love it exists as a quality and condition. Not as a physical thing. It cannot be controlled, guaranteed or compelled. You cannot set it on a shelf like you can a book of law.
Justice transcends law. It lives in the heart and conscience. It cannot be ordered, granted, bought or administered—only lived as a choice.
© Michael Maurer Smith 2009
I used to explain this as the difference between the process-driven approach of the ER techs in RoboCop vs. the passionate-never-give-up attitude of Bud (Virgil) trying to save his not-quite former wife in the Abyss. If all you’re doing is following the rules, chances are you’re not getting the job done…
Which is a roundabout, self-absorbed way of saying that this post spoke to me. Thanks.
I’m glad you liked it. Most lawyers are good people, but I’ve never understood why so many seem to believe that justice is derived from law.