Justice: has anything changed since 1615?

In Rivka Galchen’s book Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch (see book review dated May 22), the reader accompanies the narrator through a true witch hunt. Although it is a novel, the book is based on the actual trial of Katharina Kepler. Her son was Johannes Kepler, whom you may remember from science class as the mathematician/astronomer who developed understanding of planetary motion, telescopes, and was considered the father of modern optics.
 
     In this book, we see “she said” vs “he said” testimony, false accusations under oath, corruption, bribery, exorbitant legal costs, and painstaking slowness in the process of justice.
Sound familiar? It certainly does to me. Has anything changed since 1615?

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