ARE OUR LAWS PROTECTING THE “BAD GUYS”?

An Opinion By Jan Bergemann

Published August 25, 2026

Let’s just face it: Our country has a very complicated judicial system. And the laws that rule our country sometimes feel like they have been created to protect the bad guys. Don’t forget: The USA is the only country in the world that has more attorneys than medical doctors and our system allows attorneys who failed in private practice to become judges. What does that have to say about the quality of judges in lower courts.

Judges in higher courts are appointed by political parties and as we have seen in many recent court rulings: Some of these appointed judges are in reality political activists, not judges ruling according to our laws.

In former times the outcome of trials in courts of laws were pretty predictable, nowadays it seems to be easier to predict the outcome of a football game than the ruling of a trial. I don’t think that’s the idea our founding fathers had when they created the judicial system we have in place nowadays.

Many laws nowadays actually protect the bad guys – or are the procedures created that force judges to deal with accused criminals at fault? As much as I understand that innocent folks should be protected, I plainly can’t understand why guilty people are getting off because some police officer or some district attorney made a procedural mistake?

Somebody who is guilty of a crime – a crime as defined in our existing laws – should be found guilty of this crime: PERIOD!

It gets even worse when rich folks, able to hire and pay very high-priced attorneys, getting off with a slap on the wrist or even a not-guilty verdict. Does that mean that our laws can be bought?

How do you feel about the fact that we have seen association attorneys protecting board members violating laws are telling owners who are complaining about this at board meetings: “Sit down and shut up! You don’t have the money to sue the association anyway!”

Are that the ways our laws should be handled?

Shouldn’t we get back to the times when judges used existing laws and common sense to make their rulings?