Rats, I was hoping that kind of judicial stupidity had only infected my country.

Here's an idea. Make criminal defense lawyers liable for the repeat crimes that their clients commit. If a criminal repeats a crime, go after the crook with criminal charges and go after the his lawyer (that got him off the first time) for a hefty damage award. Since there's a personal injury lawyer on every street corner, it would be easy to discourage apologists, er um defense attorneys, from gleefully getting the same defendant off again and again. It would not take long for this process to bear fruit, as most criminal acts are committed by just a few repeat offenders, and most lawyers are only out for a buck, no matter how much spin the legal profession puts on itself.

A theme I've noticed from many postings around this forum, is the impersonal way that a few antisocial people treat the rest of the human race. Everbody's value as a person is diminished when criminal activity is basically condoned by the very organization charged with dispensing justice. IMO (of course) it is defense lawyers who have done the most to discourage civility between people, resulting in a more mean spirited society for everybody. It is tort lawyers who have done the most to discourage personal responsibility, resulting in a more unaccountable society.

How did it get this way? Certainly nobody ever set out to steer us in the direction we're headed now. Perhaps it is typical over time, for democracies that are obsessed with preserving individual rights, to gradually forget that responsibility and freedom are two sides of the same coin. If you deny or neglect either half you lose it all, that diminishing the responsibilities of an individual also diminishes the freedom of a society.