Why Thin Reasoning Paired with Power Breaks the Criminal Legal System
I have recently discovered something about myself; something I couldn’t quite put my finger on in the past. I’ve realized that encountering criminal legal system misconduct and sloppiness hits me harder than it hits most people.
And it’s not necessarily because I am more emotional, or because I am somehow looking for reasons to be angry.
It’s because I actually think in systems and patterns. I often describe it to people as thinking in “webs”; my brain sees how one thing leads to the next, and how the big picture will ultimately come together. How did it get there? Did all of the dots properly connect? Or does something about a situation not fully make sense?
And as a result, when I read court transcripts, filings, and orders, I do not just look at outcomes. I look hard at process integrity. I track how the decision was reached, not just what decision was announced.
And what I see, again and again, is not disagreement. It is broken reasoning; faulty logic. In case after case, I notice:
- missing steps
- lazy inferences
- circular logic
- narrative standing in for evidence
- inability to make and own decisions
- willful ignorance
And I have so very little tolerance for it, because these are not stylistic flaws by any stretch of the imagination. These are serious issues. You can’t just whip past them and hope for the best. You can’t do that, because they are outright structural failures.
And once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
What Most People See vs. What Systems Thinkers See
I think most people engage the criminal legal system by asking a single question or a series of them:
Did the judge rule yes or no?
But here’s where Systems Thinkers are different. We ask a completely different type of question:
How did the judge get there?
That difference matters. Especially in systems that exercise astonishingly coercive power. In situations where the decision can quite literally be the difference between life or death, freedom or incarceration, process is supposed to be the safeguard. It’s the QA; it’s supposed to keep you from working outside the set confines and breaking things. Outcomes can sometimes be corrected. Reasoning failures get replicated.
But when authority substitutes inflated confidence for analysis, the system does not fail once. It fails predictably over and over again. And if I’m being honest, that is why I have so little tolerance for incompetent judges and prosecutors. Power should not be top cover for a disturbing lack of competence.
And yet it is. People are trained to respect Judges simply because they wear a black robe and sit on a bench. It should never be automatic; it should be demonstrated and earned.
And that’s when it hit me: like many professions, some people are not, and were never cut out for this from the beginning. Why? Because passing law school does not mean someone will be a good lawyer. Period. No matter what school you go to, how much you pay for your degree, or how hard you study, you either have it or you don’t.
Law School Credentials Do Not Guarantee Strong, Logical Thinking
Law school is widely treated as proof positive of intelligence and judgment. But I am here to tell you I have met lawyers who lack basic common sense. So what does law school do? Well, in reality, it primarily rewards:
- endurance
- conformity
- issue-spotting templates
- rule recitation
- confidence under hierarchy
It does not reliably test:
- epistemic humility
- systems thinking
- evidence weighing under uncertainty
- intellectual curiosity
- willingness to self-correct
A person could easily pass law school, pass the bar, and rise through the system while never, ever developing disciplined reasoning habits. In fact, rigid institutions often reward people who stop interrogating assumptions early. Hang around any office where bureaucracy reigns supreme; you’ll find the same dynamic.
And the ability for ineptitude to so spectacularly rise causes significant damage, especially when mediocrity is celebrated and rewarded. Especially when those people gain substantial discretion over liberty and varying degrees of immunity.
That’s when it becomes truly terrifying.
What the Transcripts Reveal
Court transcripts are not just records of outcomes. They are records of thought. And when you read them as closely as I have as a systems thinker, patterns emerge:
- assumptions treated as facts
- conclusions announced before reasoning
- discretion used as explanation instead of responsibility
- uncertainty resolved through authority rather than inquiry
- chasing gut instinct rather than following the law
- forming an immediate conclusion and jamming everything else in to fit the narrative they’ve made up in their head
This is not judgment. It is role performance. The problem is not disagreement with defense arguments. The problem is the complete absence of demonstrated reasoning.
And when reasoning collapses (or was never there to begin with), legitimacy collapses with it.
Authority Without Interrogation Is Dangerous
Obviously I have no problem voicing concerns when I see something wrong or see authority behaving badly. Which is why I stick out like a sore thumb in particular settings, because hierarchical legal systems tend to:
- punish curiosity
- reward compliance
- treat doubt as weakness
- frame error correction as a direct threat
Over time, this creates an environment where people advance by not asking hard questions, but by sitting back and letting things ride. By shrugging and saying, “it is what it is.”
And that’s how shamefully thin thinking becomes normalized.
Deference replaces critical thinking and analysis.
And power moves faster than accountability.
When that happens, the system does not just malfunction, it becomes self-protective to hide its incompetence entirely.
Why This Causes Real Harm
Poor reasoning in the criminal legal system does not stay abstract. It is quantifiable harm. It causes health issues. It destroys families. And to me, it is wholly unacceptable to be either so compliant or so stupid that you hurt people. It is unacceptable.
It shows up again and again as:
- unnecessary incarceration
- prolonged probation controls
- family separation
- procedural cruelty framed as neutrality
- people being told harm is “technical” or “administrative”
When I created FitBench, I was immediately worried: how many lawyers turned judges began their careers with faulty cognitive abilities? How many of them were never cognitively fit to serve in the first place?
Because for the people they incarcerate, the families paying the price, for all of us out here living with the consequences of their faulty logic and actions, there is not one damn technical thing about it. A system that cannot explain itself clearly absolutely cannot justify the power it wields.
Why This Is So Hard to Unsee
So now we’ve come back around to what happens when you pay attention to the man behind the curtain. Once you think in systems, you cannot unsee:
- where steps were skipped
- where logic jumped tracks
- where “because I said so” replaced analysis
- where narrative mattered more than the record
Being told to “trust the process” when the process is visibly broken feels like being asked to ignore gravity.
This is not about disagreement with outcomes.
It is about the absence of disciplined thinking in positions that demand it most.
Why I Keep Writing Anyway
I hate everything being as broken as it is. It’s painful to watch. It’s painful to see stunningly incompetent people in power cover-up their inequities and hurt people who point them out. But I still write because systems only change when their failure modes are named clearly.
Not loudly.
Not emotionally.
Accurately.
Illogical thinking survives on deference.
But it never survives scrutiny.
Why This Matters
This is not about one judge, one county, or one case file. It is about what happens when:
- credentials are mistaken for cognition
- authority outruns analysis
- endurance is rewarded over judgment
People who think in systems feel the damage sooner and more sharply than those who only look at outcomes. Not because they are sensitive, but because they are paying attention to how power actually works.
And in a system that can cage people based on temper tantrums and their gut, how decisions are made is not a side issue. It is the issue entirely.
