The sentence is too long. The sentence is too lenient. The settlement is excessive. The courts are a joke.

A court beat reporter hears these complaints routinely from victims of crime, those accused of committing crimes and from parties involved in family or civil lawsuits, and sometimes they make sense.

This is not a plug for mediocrity, but it seems that for all the conflicting interests, imperfect justice is the best possible outcome. Victims have rights. Defendants have rights. Plantiffs defending civil complaints have rights. It's called due process, in which the government must respect all of the legal rights that are owed to a person. Inevitably, somebody is going to lose.

Consider the alternative. Earlier this year, murder victim Johnny Amy’s father was angry that his son’s killer showed no remorse at his sentencing. Amy, who was living and working at Foxwoods Resort Casino, was gunned down for no apparent reason. Convicted at a trial in May 2014, Daquan R. Holmes was sentenced in July to 54 years in prison. The victim's father, Mario Amy, said that in Haiti, where he comes from, there might have been no justice at all for Johnny. Our system worked, even if no one was particularly happy with the outcome.