Politics

I think that would be a wonderful idea. There actually are places where as I understand it the public defender's office is pretty good, with decent criminal attorneys who can really fight the case for you if there is something to work with, but that's not consistent. Historically it was sometimes very bad. A lot of places it's still pretty bad.

It's also somewhat unrelated, but I think the era of putting a whole bunch of stuff on YouTube is a really good step. A lot of courtrooms just broadcast everything that happens onto a dedicated YouTube channel now, unless there is some reason not to, and it's a really good thing. I think empowering people to show other people what happened, the actual nuts and bolts and how it went down in court, if there's some fuckery, is giving a pretty strong disadvantage (in the long run) to the fuckery.

I saw one of these that was fucking harrowing. A woman got sexually assaulted, and the prosecutor had worked out a slap-on-the-wrist plea agreement for the guy without really consulting her even though they had said they would. She showed up for the sentencing and asked to speak before they went through with the plea agreement. That's not really normal but the judge said fine. She explained all about how the prosecutor had lied to her, how they'd assured her that the guy would actually get punished and then just ghosted her, and called out the prosecutor for lying in court when he tried to argue back with her. She was furious. The judge rejected the plea agreement, yelled at the prosecutor, and they negotiated back to something that was still kind of bullshit (I think like 30 days in jail and some probation), but more than it had been. Which you could tell she was still absolutely enraged by. She argued with the judge, the judge kind of apologized but "you know look the prosecution are the ones that are going to fight the case, there's only so much I can do."

Anyway it was bullshit. But the point is, having it in public I think is definitely better than not. I think a lot of the fuckery that developed in the US criminal justice system is because the cops' behavior on the street, and then the judgements happening inside the courtroom, were really only visible if you're in some way involved in the system, so it's hard for the community as a whole to really see what's happening. IDK what the answer is but it does seem like reducing the massive money-dependence that the system has, and making it more transparent to people who aren't either working for the system or immediately in the crosshairs, are two really important things.