Something we haven't really addressed is the tension between justice-for-society and justice-for-the-victim.
Going back to that article that Boo posted, on the second page, it talks about the victim of the crime that was misattributed to Mr. Cage. Justice for her has been miscarried for 14+ years.
Now one might claim that the system can't be faulted for that delay, at least not intentionally, since it thought it had found the culprit. Well then, what of justice for Mr. Cage? He too was a victim who had to wait extensively for justice.
Is justice time sensitive? Justice, for the victim at least, can never come soon enough. The American judicial system (and to my understanding, the judicial system in other countries as well) is incredibly slow and plodding, thus one could argue that it further wrongs the victims of crime. We can attribute a small portion of this geological pace with due diligence; cases must be constructed, evidence gathered, trials held, appeals, etc. But another significant factor is lack of "man-power" as well as plain old not caring. Too few people work for swift justice, and even thorough justice is at times beyond us.
