Kansas City MO Prosecuting Attornies Office Out of Order

Gunslinger, shootist, pistoleer, hired gun. Such terms conjure up an image of a western hero protecting lawful citizens on America’s uncivilized frontier. Yet the romanticizing of the Old West has clouded the precise meanings of these words over time. None of these terms are synonyms for lawman or outlaw, because in the Wild West, gunfighters frequently worked both sides of the law. Jesse James belonged in that category. On this day in 1872, James shot a little girl in the leg during a scuffle over a cash box that Jesse was trying to pilfer from Ben Wallace at the Kansas State Fair. Those people who lived in the Missouri counter where Jesse was raised were convinced Jesse was not an outlaw excused his actions away. The trouble with differentiating outlaws from the lawmen hasn’t changed much from the days of the Old West. I’d throw lawyers into the mix of professions the average citizen can’t determine if the individual is for upholding what is good and right and true or just wanting to make a name for themselves by racking up a series of so-called wins using any mean to get a conviction. I thought lawyers would be like the character Ransom Stoddard from the movie The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. I never imagined they misrepresented themselves for political gain. Watching the trust I had in the legal system disappear has been a sad, confusing experience, like watching smoke from a book-burning taint a cloudless sky. In the past, I revered the legal system as the backbone of democracy. Now I quite frankly fear it – its linguistic fog, the casualness of the brutal transactions, the sheer density of its unconcern, their lack of desire to really find the truth. Somebody has their thumb on the scales of justice, folks. “And he’s out of order, I’m out of order, the whole system is out of order.”