Is there Justice in Our Legal System?

By Rabbi Barry Silver, Esq.
The American legal system is derived from Jewish law in many respects.The twelve person jury system representing a cross-section of the 12 tribes of Israel, the idea that one’s home is his castle, the concept of sanctuary,whereby a person fleeing others may not be pursued within a religious establishment, the various degrees of punishment for wrongfully taking the life of another, ranging from a fine to the death
penalty, depending upon the level of intent, reliance upon statutes, and stare decisis, or case precedent to decide the outcome of a case, the use of witnesses, lawyers and judges are some of many examples of the great influence of the Bible upon American jurisprudence.

While Biblical law is replete with calls for justice, righteousness, fairness and compassion,these concepts are all but absent from the American legal system. In fact, in the standard jury
instructions given in the civil courts of Florida, the Judge counsels the jury that they must not let compassion or emotion affect their decision, and often further instructs them to pay no attention
to concepts of right or wrong, fairness or similar factors from every day experience, and must rely strictly on the law.

In our nation’s highly adversarial legal system many people erroneously think that the best attorney is always the most aggressive.However,in many cases,the best attorney is the one who can quickly and inexpensively resolve a dispute, without leaving everyone in his wake, including his own client, bruised and bloodied.While the confrontational approach may earn more money for the attorney, it often has devastating consequences on the litigants, even the successful ones.Thus, a skilled attorney must have within his repertoire the ability to reason with others to craft a fair resolution which benefits his client when this is possible and when this cannot be achieved,he must then be able to strongly and zealously represent his client, without fear of intimidation and in a morally compelling manner. While the law in our country may seek to exclude extraneous influences such as justice and compassion,jurors,being human,still usually entertain such concepts, and thus an attorney must be able to appeal to the juror’s sense of fairness.The Jewish belief in fairness and justice in the law is too deeply ingrained in the American psyche to be easily ignored,despite the best efforts of our legal system to exclude such considerations from the minds of the jury.

A challenge to authority is another hallmark of Jewish belief and is usually lacking in other legal systems.When G-d told Abraham that Sodom and Gemorrah would be destroyed, Abraham challenged G-d and got Him to change his decree if Abraham could find 10 good people.While sadly, such individuals could not be found, the story demonstrates the Jewish tradition of standing up for the innocent and for truth against any authority, even G-d, and records that such challenges will not be punished, but to the contrary, are accounted praiseworthy. History has shown the horrific consequences of silence in the
face of cruelty to others, and the long tradition of Jewish efforts to break this silence and to stand up for all who are oppressed and suffering.