We Used to Hang Horse Thieves. Now We Bill Them by the Hour.
Once upon a time, justice was swift. Billy shoots Roger at the bar because Roger insulted his wife? Justice wasn’t a two-season Netflix series — it was a rope and a tree by sundown. The town knew what happened, the town dealt with it. And yes, sometimes they got it wrong. But most of the time? When the horse thief was caught with the goddamn horse, or the whole bar saw Billy pull the trigger, the ending wasn’t complicated. You hanged in the square, and your rotting ass was a PSA for the children.
But now? Justice is just another reality show with lawyers as the cast. O.J. drags a murder trial out for a year and the entire country learns the deep legal significance of gloves. Timothy McVeigh blows up a federal building, kills a bunch of kids, and still sits on death row for four years — you know, just in case we were unsure.
And don’t get me started on the McDonald’s coffee case. Once upon a time, spilling hot coffee on yourself was a you problem. Now it’s a million-dollar settlement because some lawyer figured out how to turn a burned thigh into a payday.
I saw this circus up close. Last year, I got summoned for jury duty here in Santa Fe. Case was simple: a woman goes to Maria’s, a local restaurant. Gets out of her car, trips in a pothole in the dirt lot, hurts herself. Any sane human would’ve said, “Well, damn, I should’ve watched my step.” But no — she sued the restaurant. Sued. For tripping. In Santa Fe. Where potholes outnumber people.
The defense lawyer in his greasy, used-car-salesman suit asked me how I felt about victims being partially to blame for their own injuries. I said, “Of course she’s to blame. She tripped. Whenever I trip, it’s my fault. Now, can I still be impartial in deciding whether the restaurant has some liability? Sure. But don’t stand there and pretend she’s blameless. That doesn’t make any sense.”
Needless to say, I was booted. Logical jurors need not apply. They stacked their bleeding-heart panel, and wouldn’t you know it — the jury awarded this woman thirty. million. dollars. Thirty million — for not watching where she was walking. And with that, they set a precedent that every business owner in New Mexico now gets to live in fear of.
Lawyers have perverted every corner of our legal system. Even the definitions. We used to have “murder.” Just murder. Now it’s like Baskin-Robbins: murder one, murder two, felony murder, voluntary manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter, aggravated murder, “oopsie manslaughter with a side of fries.” There’s a flavor for every occasion, and every flavor is just another billable hour for a lawyer.
Justice doesn’t run on justice anymore. It runs on semantics and hourly rates. The Founding Fathers wanted liberty, but what we built was a lawyer economy. Justice is no longer about guilt or innocence — it’s about who can afford the better suit in the courtroom. Justice for all, sure…as long as you’re on the Forbes 100 list. If you’re broke, you get a public defender juggling 300 cases and a Mountain Dew addiction. If you’re rich, you get a war room full of Harvard grads who can convince twelve people that stabbing your neighbor 47 times was just a misunderstanding.
This isn’t justice. It’s justice theater. It feeds itself instead of protecting us. A self-sustaining behemoth where the only winners are lawyers.
And if the Founding Fathers could see this mess, they’d drag us all back to the town square, build a gallows, and hang the lawyers first.
