sounds exactly like the point where a major fix must be done. Life changes faster and faster. The precedent system was great in 15th century when things look pretty much the same like in the 14th or 13th century.
Any claim that court ruler enabled crime is highly debatable. Factors causing increases and decreases in crime rates are difficult to pin-point.
One argument is returning Vietnam veterans lead to the increase in violent crime - post-war eras have a history of being associated with crime-increases from the return of veterans habituated to violence.
> The legal system is based strongly on precedent. It can't just undo major rulings of the past and replace the with something sane.
Sure it can; major court rulings have been overturned by later courts, and, even if courts won't do that, the law which they were interpreting when they made the rulings (including the Constitution) can be changed, rendering the old rulings moot.
Um, so? Then we need to allocate more resources to prosecute cases.
If I am falsely accused, I want my day in court. And I want it to be fair. The current system has problems on both fronts.
The problem is that there's no way for anyone else to determine a priori if your accusation is false or true. That's what the whole presumed innocent until proven guilty thing is about.
In reality, if you are accused AT ALL, you want your day in court and you want it to be fair. Even if you had committed a crime, if the police did something they're not supposed to that needs to get sussed out in court and you should go free.
Half the point of a trial is to make sure that nothing unfair is done by the investigators (police, prosecutor, etc). This is to keep their power in check so that they'll follow the rules. Otherwise it could get mighty tempting to fudge something a little bit "because we KNOW this is the guy!" and "we need to do the right thing."
By the 70s crime had skyrocketed and it was clear that they had gone too far. But instead of issuing a mea culpa and reexamining past rulings, the various courts started allowing prosecutors to claim broad new powers and take extremely aggressive tactics.
By this point there's no real way to fix it. The legal system is based strongly on precedent. It can't just undo major rulings of the past and replace the with something sane.