Law is supposed to support a free society. Instead, increasingly, "following the rules" prevents people from doing what's right. This week a lifelong employee of the Washington, DC parks department, Medric Mills, died of a heart attack in front of a DC fire station when the firemen refused to help. The firemen apparently believed they were "following the rules." They were only allowed to respond to 911 calls -- not the reality of a person dying at their doorstep. Or, they had to "get permission" from a supervisor before intervening. An investigation is underway.
A few years ago, hospital staff in Chicago refused to help a young man dying of gunshot wounds in the hospital driveway because of a rule that they were not allowed to leave the hospital building. In 2011, firemen watched a man drown in California because they hadn't been re-certified in "land-based waters rescues."
Law should support, not supplant, moral choices. American law has instead become a kind of obsession. The solution, as I argue in The Rule of Nobody (out in April), requires a fundamental rethinking of how law is structured: People need to be accountable for the reasonableness of their actions, not mindless compliance with detailed rules.