About

Mark Inglin, the author of The System, has lived under the protection of Swiss law since 2004. He has devoted his life to telling his and his son’s story.

The System is more than a compelling story; it provides insight into the dark recesses of a legal system that Americans are not unlikely to encounter— but not as fiction— and that disserves Americans who anticipate a myth rather than a dysfunctional system.

The book discloses wrongdoing by prominent Wisconsin lawyers and thereby threatens careers and reputations. The author’s veracity and character have been unjustly impugned by false reports and outright slander— over the course of many years. The depicted characters, whose real names are used, fear the book because it reflects their shameful histories.

The System also describes a broader picture: Our legal system cannot provide the fair trial that every American anticipates. Lawyers have come to specialize in forcing the plea bargain. To do so requires emotional intervention or client “roll-over,” a devastating experience for an innocent defendant, but a practice that is welcomed by the guilty, encouraged by emotionally exhausted judges, and undertaken furtively by lawyers who fear going counter-culture, or who simply strive to earn easy money.

Troublingly, lawyers were able to stop this story from emerging at home— in the U.S.A. They also successfully prevented the presentation of evidence in court. In fact, evidence that was falsified to protect police and lawyers is a critical part of this book.

The system protects its own and fights any admission of failure or error at the expense of innocence. Thanks to laws of genuine freedom of speech in Switzerland, however, characters in The System cannot prevent publication here, for every American to read.

After reading The System, it will become apparent that the rule of law can slip too easily through our fingers, becoming a modern-day rule for domination by the fittest— for the politically privileged and the powerfully placed.

I often quote a Milwaukee attorney, Stephen Glynn, a character in the book: “Justice is just a game, anyway.” Today, I take him strictly at his word. But I want Americans to have an opportunity to understand the real rules by which all too many lawyers play.

Mark Inglin
Interlaken, Switzerland, July 2011