 What does the outcome of Zeckler's trial suggest about the modern legal system?
Interplanetary ruling. I mean, all they had to do was get a man over here, get the extradition papers signed, and provide transportation off the planet for me. I've got three million credits sitting in the Terran Consulate on Altair V, just waiting for me to walk in and pick them up. No, nothing so simple for you. And the Terran Consulate isn't willing to sell all the trading possibilities here down the river just to get you out of a mess. You're going to stand trial—and these natives are out to get you. "You've committed the most heinous crime these creatures can imagine, and they're going to get you for it if it's the last thing they do. The first men in were the richest out, and through some curious quirk of the Terrestrial mind, they knew they could count on Terran protection, however crooked and underhand their methods. But occasionally a situation arose where the civilization and social practices of the alien victims made it unwise to tamper with them. Altair I had been recognized at once by the Trading Commission as a commercial prize of tremendous value, but early reports had warned of the danger of wildcat trading on the little, musty, jungle-like planet with its shaggy, three-eyed inhabitants—warned specifically against the confidence tactics so frequently used—but there was always somebody, Meyerhoff reflected sourly, who just didn't get the word. You'd have found out that they're marsupials, and that two out of five of them get thrown out of their mother's pouch before they're old enough to survive. You'd have realized that they have to start fighting for individual rights almost as soon as they're born. And consequently, land is the key factor in their economy, not money; nothing but land. They've built up the most confusing and impossible system of barter and trade imaginable, aimed at individual survival, with land as the value behind the credit. Lying is the time-honored tradition, with their entire legal system built around it." "As we understand legal systems, I suppose they don't have one. They have only the haziest idea what truth represents, and they've shrugged off the idea as impossible and useless." Encroachment on private property is legal grounds for murder on this planet, and twelve of them descended on the same chunk of land at the same time, all armed with title-deeds."
 The better lawyer a defendant has, the more likely they are to clear their names.
 The legal system is set up to benefit those with more power and wealth.  For a defendant in the legal system, there is no desirable outcome.  The better lawyer a defendant has, the more likely they are to clear their names.  Sometimes it is more optimal to lie and make a guilty plea, than to tell the truth and be found guilty.