[Hasz]

You can't have selectively applied due process. Due process must be applied to all without qualification for it to have any semblance of balance and impartiality.

Muckraking is fine (there's no law that says everyone should be nice to you) -- but there needs to be a line drawn between investigative journalism and libel, a line the New Yorker has pretty much always stayed on the right side of.

As for

"There are no good cops as long as bad cops retain their impunity. There are no good judges as long as the decisions from bad judges stand unexamined and unchallenged. There are no good lawyers as long as injustice persists."

-- that's an incredibly binary view. By that logic, the whistle blower is just as bad as those he blows the whistle about! There must be a gradient of good to evil, with everyone lying somewhere between ideals. I think it is a mistake and general disservice to lump the imperfect whistle-blower, advocate, and reform-minded cop/judge/lawyer in with his crooked brethren. Not only does is tarnish his or her reputation, but it also blemishes their contributions toward a more perfect system.

[meric]

More than that, the gradient of good and evil exists in everyone, across activities, across time. Many of the most evil people have done good deeds in their lives, and many of the best people have done bad deeds also. A bad cop or bad judge can yet become a good one.

[logfromblammo]

That seems most likely only after a term of incarceration in a facility focused on rehabilitation--which simply never happens in the US, not for commonplace criminals, and certainly not for cops and judges.

When the existing system for due process fails in this manner, should there be a reasonable expectation for due process in whatever ad-hoc process that arises because justice is not being served? I don't think so. If your job is to provide due process, and you undermine that, then you deserve all the vigilantism that comes your way because of it.

When you abuse the legal guardianship system to rob people of their family, and rob their family of their money, you should count yourself lucky if all that happens to you is that you get convicted in the regular legal system and go to prison. Those judges that granted this woman highly abusable levels of power after two minutes or less in an ex-parte hearing have filth on their hands, too.

If you want to save people from vigilantism, you have to be willing to send them to prison through the regular legal system. If you give them de facto impunity, people will find other ways, less fair and impartial, to punish them.

[dragonwriter]

> A bad cop or bad judge can yet become a good one.

A bad cop or bad judge is also a bad citizen, and they generally deserve the opportunity to become a good citizen. But the standards for admission to the trust involved in law enforcement or judging should be high, and if you’ve proven yourself untrustworthy in such a role, any reentry should take extraordinary proof of reform before it is considered, and it may simply be a better use of social resources not to leave that door open at all.

[dragonwriter]

> By that logic, the whistle blower is just as bad as those he blows the whistle about!

If whistleblowing matters at all, then bad cops don't have impunity, and the statement doesn't apply.

OTOH, if whistleblowing is an empty gesture...