I have written before about absolutely insane laws in the United States that feel extremely wrong and unjust. The following two examples of American legal practice are not at that level of total insanity, but they still feel a bit iffy with regards to one's sense of justice.
1) Imagine that you work for a company as an accountant and treasurer, and while doing your job you engage in some shady illegal behavior, embezzling company money, falsifying bookkeeping to try to hide your theft of company money, and so on. This, of course, is very illegal. However, when you get caught, you simply quit your job in that company and... that's it. Nothing happens to you. The company stops pursuing the case and just lets you go free. No consequences.
Or imagine that you are a nurse working in a hospital, and while doing your job, you start secretly poisoning patients. Highly illegal activity. But when caught, you just quit your job there and... again, that's it: No consequences. The hospital and the authorities just stop investigating and prosecuting you. You get away with your crimes scot-free. At most, the victims of your crimes might try to sue you, but the hospital itself, and the government, will not do that on their own, because you quit your job.
Would that make any kind of sense? It would be pretty insane. How exactly does quitting your job absolve you of your crimes to such an extent that the authorities outright stop investigating and prosecuting you?
Well, this exact scenario is constantly happening in the United States. And the specific job where that's happening is a police officer. Again and again and again you can read and see news stories about some police officer committing some crime against someone, violating people's rights or outright breaking the law (such as using completely unjustified and egregiously excessive force, or planting evidence, or a myriad of other crimes)... and then the police officer just quits, and the investigation and prosecution stops. At most, the victim of the crime may sue the former cop personally, but that's it. The government will not lift a finger.
While this is not always the case, in every single case (especially in the most egregious ones, like for example a cop outright murdering someone), it's still way, way too common. There are probably literally thousands and thousands of news stories like this. For some reason it appears to be common practice in the United States that if a cop who committed crimes while in the line of duty quits his job, prosecution stops.
Which, of course, makes very little sense.
2) If an individual citizen sues a police officer (who has not quit his job), a police precinct, and/or a town or city, American law actually guarantees those parties the right to offer a settlement to the plaintiff, ie. the citizen suing them. In other words, completely regardless of what those cops or the city officials did, no matter how astonishingly egregious and illegal, they are guaranteed the right to settle the case with the victim, and if the victim accepts, the court case will stop and no further actions will be taken.
At a quick glance that might not sound very problematic. After all, why would that be a problem?
Well, the problem is that the law pretty much guarantees these governmental officials to avoid accountability and setting a precedent. In other words, if the case is settled, the court will at no point find the defendants (ie. the governmental entity, such as the police precinct or the city) guilty, the defendants do not have to admit guilt, will escape accountability, and no legal precedent will be set for future similar cases.
That is, in fact, a completely standard stipulation in those settlements, in pretty much 100% of them: The citizen will stop the lawsuit, and the governmental entity will not admit guilt.
Because the settlement will always be a sum of money paid to the citizen, it's pretty much in essence a bribe. It's a bribe paid to the citizen to have the lawsuit go away, without the governmental entity having to admit guilt and avoid a verdict.
And what's worse, that money will be tax-payer money. Not a single individual involved has to pay a single penny from their own pocket. It's always tax-payer money. So, in other words, the citizens of the country are unwittingly paying for bribes given to victims to have lawsuits go away, without even asking their consent or permission to do that.
Yes, the victim has the right to refuse the settlement, so that the trial will continue, but none of them do. In fact, their lawyers will always strongly recommend accepting the settlement.
Why? Because even if the citizen were to win the case, the payout will usually be but a small fraction of what the settlement is offering. If, for example, the settlement offers, say, 10 million dollars, the typical payout determined by a judge in such cases, if the citizen were to win the case, would be maybe 1% of that, ie. somewhere in the ballpark of 100 thousand dollars. So the question is: Do you want 10 million dollars for certain, or do you want to risk it and maybe get 100 thousand, if you happen to win?
This fact is corroborated by any trial lawyer you may ask.
And, thus, the victim is bribed with tax-payer money to drop the lawsuit, and the infringing party will never have to admit guilt, will never be sentenced, and no legal precedent will ever be set, avoiding similar cases in the future.
Is that justice?
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