And once again: the apparatus of criminal justice in America is a religion. It’s premised on a faith-based belief, a sacrament: the belief that the person the government accused did it, and that it’s offensive heresy to believe otherwise. /2

With no takebacks

Correction: Unless we're talking about the government accusing a conservative of something. Then it's a fake news witch hunt by deep state commies hellbent on the destruction of America, and exactly the reason why we all need several dozen AR-15's apiece.

/3. Contemplating that the system accused, or especially convicted, the wrong person is, to believers, like denying Christ.

I was talking about this in my humanities class today. The accused suffer twice: from social blame, and the violence of punishment

“I learned the policemen are my friends,/ I learned that justice never ends,/ I learned that murderers pay for their crimes,/ Even if we make a mistake sometimes,/ And that's what I learned in school today,/ That's what I learned in school” From “What Did You Learn in School Today?” By Tom Paxton

Unfortunately, I don't think that we'll ever see any meaningful reform of our criminal justice system. Even though half of the country will decry the brutish nature of our CJ system, half of those people will go all Blue Lives Matter if they especially don't like a defendant.

It is based on the conservative belief that the government is fundamentally incompetent and wrong except when it decides to kill people.