Between the covert return of the poll tax (in the form of voting ID laws, and such); and for-profit prisons with stocks traded on Wall St. requiring enough warm bodies on the inside to keep profits rising; the war on the Black Community and/or the poor is real.

Whenever church and state begin to merge, authoritarian structures become more and more punitive and restrict more and more human liberties. Today’s U.S. spy state is a primary example and a good percentage of Republican voters vote the White Christian Authoritarian Brand and the result is governors like Scott Walker and the creep in Michigan (whose name escapes me).

Essentially, the right to a trial, an attorney, and the presumption of innocence are nullified and in their places, the ruling ethos is: “You stand accused!” (It’s got a real “Inquisition” Deja vu feel to it, too.)

Look at the amount of money the state will waste on a trial, or even paper processing for a nonsensical accusation (stolen hot dogs) that any arbiter could see was mistaken, if not contrived.

There should be law students who get credit for doing community FIELD work. Cases that involve fees under $500 can have arbiters do the footwork and look at the evidence and determine if any party is culpable. They should have the authority to merely write “tickets” which like parking tickets, have a span of time in which they must be paid.

Otherwise, to tie up courts with this nonsense is a ridiculous use of public resources and a mockery of what’s left of the Justice System.