He wasted valuable city resources on an experiment the 
  outcome of which he should have predicted, being a 
  criminal attorney in Roxbury.

See, I think the opposite - how can upstanding members of society like me claim to hold an informed opinion about the justice system when the closest I've ever come is watching the TV show 'Prison Break'?

You don't learn to program by watching a movie - you learn by trying it, getting hands-on experience. You don't learn to dance or do sports by reading a book - you learn by getting up and moving, getting hands-on experience. You don't become a judge without seeing the inside of a courtroom. You don't become a poet or a film maker or a musician without trying it. You don't qualify as surgeon without hands on experience or qualify as a pilot without hands on experience or train as a mechanic by watching 'the fast and the furious'.

In all these areas, we acknowledge that fiction and second hand reports aren't a substitute for first-hand experience.

So how can you and I claim to know anything about the justice system if we have no first hand experience?

Don't all of us who care about law and order have a responsibility to inform ourselves about how the system works, as the author of this article has done?