Ian Welsh makes a number of cogent suggestions, including eliminating forfeiture laws, drug criminalization, RICO laws, etc., but there is one suggestion that stands out and shines like the sun:
If you really want to make the system work, make all private lawyers for criminal charges illegal, and use only public defenders, chosen by lot. I guarantee that the pay and competence of public defenders would soar and their case load would drop as soon as rich people realized that they could be the one being defended by an overworked and underpaid lawyer.
This is f%$#ing brilliant.
Read the rest.