Extended Length of Kraft Murder Trial

One measure of the greatness of our country has been our unique legal system.

My opinion is that our judicial system has lost track of its goal and seems to be running for its own sake, not the sake of citizens.

It is not surprising that Superior Court Judge Donald A. McCartin would express his dismay over the length and cost of Randy Steven Kraft’s trial. After all, this man was found driving with a corpse whose presence he couldn’t explain in the passenger seat of his car. McCartin said the trial should have been over in three months.

It is no mystery to me why these trials take so long. The longer the trial, the more attorneys are paid.

Fortunately, there is a simple solution already created by the attorneys. However, it was conceived by the attorneys to limit costs in medicine, not law. It’s called Medicare. Attorneys decided that for life-and-death surgery, physicians and hospitals could only charge a maximum allowable charge. There are criminal penalties for charging above this level. Bureaucrats review each charge, and they decide whether the procedure was necessary and reasonable, and they will disallow any excess. Some states require that physicians accept Medicare patients to maintain their licenses.

The entire groundwork has already been laid to reduce court costs. If maximum charges can be set for surgery, hospital, and anesthesia charges--situations in which there is no “appeal” for mistakes because of forced economy--then why not for court trials?

Court-appointed defense attorneys would be paid fixed reasonable fees and nothing more. Let them hire extra attorneys out of this amount. Let them take two years. Let them delay, to a point. Fines could be levied for undue postponements. Then after the trial, a utilization review board--a panel composed of non-attorney bureaucrats--would evaluate and reduce the fees as they see fit. Of course, the acceptance of these fees would be a condition to practice law.

In the Kraft case, the panel might, for instance, decide that extending the trial beyond what was necessary to convict on the original murder charges was unnecessary and would not be paid for--just like unnecessary laboratory work, hospitalization or surgery.

Of course, there is no chance that the attorney Legislature would enact such measures as they did against physicians. I have no desire to abridge our Fifth (“due process”) and Sixth Amendments wherein the accused “shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial . . . and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.” But what about the right of the people to a speedy trial? Due process has been converted to “dough process” by the attorneys. Our Founding Fathers could never have foreseen the ridiculous delays and concepts in the McMartin, Ramirez and Kraft trials.

We voters should initiate a proposition to set court fees. It’s our only hope. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

RONALD O. DAVIES

Mission Viejo