Yeah, this does seem like someone getting away with antisocial behavior.
The thing about the US legal system (and other systems derived from English law) though, is that legal rulings aren’t only about the particular case — they establish general principles that will be applied in a variety of future cases.
So, if they’re doing their jobs properly, judges should not be thinking of how sympathetic a particular party in a particular case is.
One famous example of this is Ernesto Miranda, by all accounts a horrible monster (murderer and rapist). The Supreme Court rightly ignored the distasteful nature of the particular individual, and threw out his confession as having been illegally obtained. That’s why we have what are now called Miranda rights, something practically every liberal can agree is a good thing.
(Tangent: in case you were wondering, Ernesto Miranda was still convicted, in the end. The evidence against him was strong enough even without the illegally-obtained confession.)
The thing about the US legal system (and other systems derived from English law) though, is that legal rulings aren’t only about the particular case — they establish general principles that will be applied in a variety of future cases.
So, if they’re doing their jobs properly, judges should not be thinking of how sympathetic a particular party in a particular case is.
One famous example of this is Ernesto Miranda, by all accounts a horrible monster (murderer and rapist). The Supreme Court rightly ignored the distasteful nature of the particular individual, and threw out his confession as having been illegally obtained. That’s why we have what are now called Miranda rights, something practically every liberal can agree is a good thing.
(Tangent: in case you were wondering, Ernesto Miranda was still convicted, in the end. The evidence against him was strong enough even without the illegally-obtained confession.)