The Order of the Fighting Fathers

"The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst they said to him, "Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?" (John 8)

And I have never met anyone who does not love this passage, and I have never heard anyone suggest that Jesus did the wrong thing with this woman - that He should have been harsher with her - and yet at the same time I have never heard anyone ever suggest that we should be following Jesus’ example here in terms of the way we deal with people who break the law!

What do we do with this passage? What sort of model does Jesus offer us here?  Is Jesus ready to forgive anything and everything?  If so, does He really believe in justice at all?