The fact that James Garner is going to have another crack at a trial, six years after pleading guilty in his wife’s death, sums up so much of what is disheartening and disturbing about the American legal system.

Plea bargains like James Garner’s are meant to be a way to avoid the further pain of a trial for a victim’s family—and a way to guarantee that the accused faces some sort of justice. Back when James Garner entered his guilty plea, he said much of the same. He claimed to be only interested in sparing his family further pain. Of course, he also was convinced there was evidence to convict him.

The voluntary manslaughter charge that James Garner pleaded guilty to left him with far less at stake than the murder rap he could have faced in court. Pleading guilty to this lesser charge earned him a sentence of 25 years behind bars. He could have been staring down the death penalty. Accepting the plea is meant to shut the case. Previously, that shut case is what both sides wanted.

But in our legal system, it appears the case is never shut for a criminal, even when they have admitted to a crime. A possible witness to a vehicle in the vicinity of Molly’s Rock State Park that morning, where Kathy Garner’s beaten body was left, was the key that unlocked her husband’s prison sentence. He claims he would not have pleaded guilty if he had known of this vehicle. Although, if he is not guilty, common sense would have dictated to James Garner that there was always the possibility of someone or some fact coming to light that would clear his name, or cast reasonable doubt on his guilt.

It is supposed to be innocent until proven guilty in this country. For various reasons both sides of the courtroom seem to continually doubt that the system works. Those seeds of doubt lead to a gaming of the system to try and achieve desired end results for the interested parties. But once you start gaming the system, it is just that, a game, and pleas become meaningless, sentences disposable. Minutiae of a case can trip up both the accused and the accusers, and leave all parties wary of leaving it up to juries and judges. But something is horribly wrong with a system where someone can take back a plea they entered years ago. It is one thing for a verdict to be overturned, a mistake could legitimately happen in a trial (new DNA evidence, etc.) But when someone enters a plea, they are signing their own fate, should be held to their word, and should be serious and truthful when they give it.

Kathy Garner was hit more than 16 times in the head with a blunt object and left dying in a pool of blood in a parking lot under her vehicle. Now her family will suffer again. Where is the justice in that?