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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
On March 06 2018 11:09 Kyadytim wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2018 11:02 xDaunt wrote:On March 06 2018 10:30 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 06 2018 10:25 Toadesstern wrote:On March 06 2018 09:34 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 06 2018 09:28 ticklishmusic wrote:
Public defenders are typically solid, if overworked. I would factor caseload into the quality of legal representation. There's basically no question that public defenders are shit, not by way of incompetence, but by way of unrealistic expectations. No private lawyer would ever consider the type of caseload a public defender sees. In my eyes, that's not justice, just going through the motions. I'm not really seeing any moral or ethical justifications either, outside of "money is god". EDIT: That's why I'm of the opinion our legal system is a farce run by brutes. I just don't see an alternative. You want an incentive for people to get good at their job and thus earn more than an "average" or "bad" lawyer, whatever that may be to you. So that's fine. But if I'm understanding your system correctly in that you have to pay your fees no matter if you win or lose that'd be a nice point to start changing something. At least make it so the one losing has to pay so that you can't just get spammed out by someone willing to pay a lot until you can't afford to fight it anymore. Again, just hearsay and no idea if it really works that way or if it's an exaggerationg. I can acknowledge fixing it isn't an easy job, but recognizing it's immoral and unethical core seems beyond nearly all of it's professionals. It's only immoral and unethical if you're a communist and wholly reject capitalism. The entire Western way of life is predicated upon competition and the ability of those with the means to buy the best to go out and buy the best. Why stop at law with your radical egalitarianism? Why not give everyone the same shitty health care, the same shitty residences, the same shitty cars (or bicycles), the same shitty food, etc.? Are you really looking to turn the US into Venezuela? So you're saying that capitalism requires that justice (or the evasion thereof) should have a price on it and be for sale?
You are talking about judicial economy, or the cost of bringing a claim and the cost to the state to hear said claim. It is a big part of law and one of its fundamental flaw. But it is also a problem that can’t be solved because it costs money to operate the court and pay the skilled legal professionals who staff it. Judges don’t work for free. Service of process isn’t free. Witnesses to appear in court won’t do it for nothing. The orders that are issued won’t be enforced without covering the costs to do so.
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in other lawyer news:
+ Show Spoiler +https://twitter.com/FoxOnABox_/status/970800440836149248
edit: ninj'd
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On March 06 2018 11:07 Kyadytim wrote:
This is just exquisitely appropriate for the madness that has been today.
"accidentally"
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On March 06 2018 11:14 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2018 11:09 Kyadytim wrote:On March 06 2018 11:02 xDaunt wrote:On March 06 2018 10:30 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 06 2018 10:25 Toadesstern wrote:On March 06 2018 09:34 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 06 2018 09:28 ticklishmusic wrote:
Public defenders are typically solid, if overworked. I would factor caseload into the quality of legal representation. There's basically no question that public defenders are shit, not by way of incompetence, but by way of unrealistic expectations. No private lawyer would ever consider the type of caseload a public defender sees. In my eyes, that's not justice, just going through the motions. I'm not really seeing any moral or ethical justifications either, outside of "money is god". EDIT: That's why I'm of the opinion our legal system is a farce run by brutes. I just don't see an alternative. You want an incentive for people to get good at their job and thus earn more than an "average" or "bad" lawyer, whatever that may be to you. So that's fine. But if I'm understanding your system correctly in that you have to pay your fees no matter if you win or lose that'd be a nice point to start changing something. At least make it so the one losing has to pay so that you can't just get spammed out by someone willing to pay a lot until you can't afford to fight it anymore. Again, just hearsay and no idea if it really works that way or if it's an exaggerationg. I can acknowledge fixing it isn't an easy job, but recognizing it's immoral and unethical core seems beyond nearly all of it's professionals. It's only immoral and unethical if you're a communist and wholly reject capitalism. The entire Western way of life is predicated upon competition and the ability of those with the means to buy the best to go out and buy the best. Why stop at law with your radical egalitarianism? Why not give everyone the same shitty health care, the same shitty residences, the same shitty cars (or bicycles), the same shitty food, etc.? Are you really looking to turn the US into Venezuela? So you're saying that capitalism requires that justice (or the evasion thereof) should have a price on it and be for sale? You are talking about judicial economy, or the cost of bringing a claim and the cost to the state to hear said claim. It is a big part of law and one of its fundamental flaw. But it is also a problem that can’t be solved because it costs money to operate the court and pay the skilled legal professionals who staff it. Judges don’t work for free.
The short answer is 'yes'. Slightly longer answer, 'Yes, because it's the best we can come up with'. xDaunt's answer is: "Yes and it's an awesome display of Western greatness"
Which is fine, but having a morally/ethically bankrupt justice system is a bigger problem than I think it's getting the attention of.
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On March 06 2018 11:09 Kyadytim wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2018 11:02 xDaunt wrote:On March 06 2018 10:30 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 06 2018 10:25 Toadesstern wrote:On March 06 2018 09:34 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 06 2018 09:28 ticklishmusic wrote:
Public defenders are typically solid, if overworked. I would factor caseload into the quality of legal representation. There's basically no question that public defenders are shit, not by way of incompetence, but by way of unrealistic expectations. No private lawyer would ever consider the type of caseload a public defender sees. In my eyes, that's not justice, just going through the motions. I'm not really seeing any moral or ethical justifications either, outside of "money is god". EDIT: That's why I'm of the opinion our legal system is a farce run by brutes. I just don't see an alternative. You want an incentive for people to get good at their job and thus earn more than an "average" or "bad" lawyer, whatever that may be to you. So that's fine. But if I'm understanding your system correctly in that you have to pay your fees no matter if you win or lose that'd be a nice point to start changing something. At least make it so the one losing has to pay so that you can't just get spammed out by someone willing to pay a lot until you can't afford to fight it anymore. Again, just hearsay and no idea if it really works that way or if it's an exaggerationg. I can acknowledge fixing it isn't an easy job, but recognizing it's immoral and unethical core seems beyond nearly all of it's professionals. It's only immoral and unethical if you're a communist and wholly reject capitalism. The entire Western way of life is predicated upon competition and the ability of those with the means to buy the best to go out and buy the best. Why stop at law with your radical egalitarianism? Why not give everyone the same shitty health care, the same shitty residences, the same shitty cars (or bicycles), the same shitty food, etc.? Are you really looking to turn the US into Venezuela? So you're saying that capitalism requires that justice (or the evasion thereof) should have a price on it and be for sale?
I wholly reject the idea that justice has a price on it. The only thing that has a price on it is quality of legal counsel. The two concepts are neither nor equivalent nor proxies for each other. I'm perfectly fine with the idea that people have to pay for the best attorneys if they want the best attorneys. What criminal defendants without resources get for free is good enough.
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On March 06 2018 11:25 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2018 11:09 Kyadytim wrote:On March 06 2018 11:02 xDaunt wrote:On March 06 2018 10:30 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 06 2018 10:25 Toadesstern wrote:On March 06 2018 09:34 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 06 2018 09:28 ticklishmusic wrote:
Public defenders are typically solid, if overworked. I would factor caseload into the quality of legal representation. There's basically no question that public defenders are shit, not by way of incompetence, but by way of unrealistic expectations. No private lawyer would ever consider the type of caseload a public defender sees. In my eyes, that's not justice, just going through the motions. I'm not really seeing any moral or ethical justifications either, outside of "money is god". EDIT: That's why I'm of the opinion our legal system is a farce run by brutes. I just don't see an alternative. You want an incentive for people to get good at their job and thus earn more than an "average" or "bad" lawyer, whatever that may be to you. So that's fine. But if I'm understanding your system correctly in that you have to pay your fees no matter if you win or lose that'd be a nice point to start changing something. At least make it so the one losing has to pay so that you can't just get spammed out by someone willing to pay a lot until you can't afford to fight it anymore. Again, just hearsay and no idea if it really works that way or if it's an exaggerationg. I can acknowledge fixing it isn't an easy job, but recognizing it's immoral and unethical core seems beyond nearly all of it's professionals. It's only immoral and unethical if you're a communist and wholly reject capitalism. The entire Western way of life is predicated upon competition and the ability of those with the means to buy the best to go out and buy the best. Why stop at law with your radical egalitarianism? Why not give everyone the same shitty health care, the same shitty residences, the same shitty cars (or bicycles), the same shitty food, etc.? Are you really looking to turn the US into Venezuela? So you're saying that capitalism requires that justice (or the evasion thereof) should have a price on it and be for sale? I wholly reject the idea that justice has a price on it. The only thing that has a price on it is quality of legal counsel. The two concepts are neither nor equivalent nor proxies for each other. I'm perfectly fine with the idea that people have to pay for the best attorneys if they want the best attorneys. What criminal defendants without resources get for free is good enough.
What are you buying but an advantage in an allegedly impartial system? Is your argument that the advantage not being absolute certainty to avoid guilty verdicts, ever, makes it 'good enough'?
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On March 06 2018 11:25 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2018 11:09 Kyadytim wrote:On March 06 2018 11:02 xDaunt wrote:On March 06 2018 10:30 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 06 2018 10:25 Toadesstern wrote:On March 06 2018 09:34 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 06 2018 09:28 ticklishmusic wrote:
Public defenders are typically solid, if overworked. I would factor caseload into the quality of legal representation. There's basically no question that public defenders are shit, not by way of incompetence, but by way of unrealistic expectations. No private lawyer would ever consider the type of caseload a public defender sees. In my eyes, that's not justice, just going through the motions. I'm not really seeing any moral or ethical justifications either, outside of "money is god". EDIT: That's why I'm of the opinion our legal system is a farce run by brutes. I just don't see an alternative. You want an incentive for people to get good at their job and thus earn more than an "average" or "bad" lawyer, whatever that may be to you. So that's fine. But if I'm understanding your system correctly in that you have to pay your fees no matter if you win or lose that'd be a nice point to start changing something. At least make it so the one losing has to pay so that you can't just get spammed out by someone willing to pay a lot until you can't afford to fight it anymore. Again, just hearsay and no idea if it really works that way or if it's an exaggerationg. I can acknowledge fixing it isn't an easy job, but recognizing it's immoral and unethical core seems beyond nearly all of it's professionals. It's only immoral and unethical if you're a communist and wholly reject capitalism. The entire Western way of life is predicated upon competition and the ability of those with the means to buy the best to go out and buy the best. Why stop at law with your radical egalitarianism? Why not give everyone the same shitty health care, the same shitty residences, the same shitty cars (or bicycles), the same shitty food, etc.? Are you really looking to turn the US into Venezuela? So you're saying that capitalism requires that justice (or the evasion thereof) should have a price on it and be for sale? I wholly reject the idea that justice has a price on it. The only thing that has a price on it is quality of legal counsel. The two concepts are neither nor equivalent nor proxies for each other. I'm perfectly fine with the idea that people have to pay for the best attorneys if they want the best attorneys. What criminal defendants without resources get for free is good enough.
This is where you and I part ways on the subject. Public defenders are always under funded and police departments are generally shit. But if folks can get a counsel who has time for their case, they generally do a good job.
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On March 06 2018 11:14 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2018 11:09 Kyadytim wrote:On March 06 2018 11:02 xDaunt wrote:On March 06 2018 10:30 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 06 2018 10:25 Toadesstern wrote:On March 06 2018 09:34 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 06 2018 09:28 ticklishmusic wrote:
Public defenders are typically solid, if overworked. I would factor caseload into the quality of legal representation. There's basically no question that public defenders are shit, not by way of incompetence, but by way of unrealistic expectations. No private lawyer would ever consider the type of caseload a public defender sees. In my eyes, that's not justice, just going through the motions. I'm not really seeing any moral or ethical justifications either, outside of "money is god". EDIT: That's why I'm of the opinion our legal system is a farce run by brutes. I just don't see an alternative. You want an incentive for people to get good at their job and thus earn more than an "average" or "bad" lawyer, whatever that may be to you. So that's fine. But if I'm understanding your system correctly in that you have to pay your fees no matter if you win or lose that'd be a nice point to start changing something. At least make it so the one losing has to pay so that you can't just get spammed out by someone willing to pay a lot until you can't afford to fight it anymore. Again, just hearsay and no idea if it really works that way or if it's an exaggerationg. I can acknowledge fixing it isn't an easy job, but recognizing it's immoral and unethical core seems beyond nearly all of it's professionals. It's only immoral and unethical if you're a communist and wholly reject capitalism. The entire Western way of life is predicated upon competition and the ability of those with the means to buy the best to go out and buy the best. Why stop at law with your radical egalitarianism? Why not give everyone the same shitty health care, the same shitty residences, the same shitty cars (or bicycles), the same shitty food, etc.? Are you really looking to turn the US into Venezuela? So you're saying that capitalism requires that justice (or the evasion thereof) should have a price on it and be for sale? You are talking about judicial economy, or the cost of bringing a claim and the cost to the state to hear said claim. It is a big part of law and one of its fundamental flaw. But it is also a problem that can’t be solved because it costs money to operate the court and pay the skilled legal professionals who staff it. Judges don’t work for free. Service of process isn’t free. Witnesses to appear in court won’t do it for nothing. The orders that are issued won’t be enforced without covering the costs to do so.
I was actually talking about different outcomes in criminal cases.
On March 06 2018 11:25 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2018 11:09 Kyadytim wrote:On March 06 2018 11:02 xDaunt wrote:On March 06 2018 10:30 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 06 2018 10:25 Toadesstern wrote:On March 06 2018 09:34 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 06 2018 09:28 ticklishmusic wrote:
Public defenders are typically solid, if overworked. I would factor caseload into the quality of legal representation. There's basically no question that public defenders are shit, not by way of incompetence, but by way of unrealistic expectations. No private lawyer would ever consider the type of caseload a public defender sees. In my eyes, that's not justice, just going through the motions. I'm not really seeing any moral or ethical justifications either, outside of "money is god". EDIT: That's why I'm of the opinion our legal system is a farce run by brutes. I just don't see an alternative. You want an incentive for people to get good at their job and thus earn more than an "average" or "bad" lawyer, whatever that may be to you. So that's fine. But if I'm understanding your system correctly in that you have to pay your fees no matter if you win or lose that'd be a nice point to start changing something. At least make it so the one losing has to pay so that you can't just get spammed out by someone willing to pay a lot until you can't afford to fight it anymore. Again, just hearsay and no idea if it really works that way or if it's an exaggerationg. I can acknowledge fixing it isn't an easy job, but recognizing it's immoral and unethical core seems beyond nearly all of it's professionals. It's only immoral and unethical if you're a communist and wholly reject capitalism. The entire Western way of life is predicated upon competition and the ability of those with the means to buy the best to go out and buy the best. Why stop at law with your radical egalitarianism? Why not give everyone the same shitty health care, the same shitty residences, the same shitty cars (or bicycles), the same shitty food, etc.? Are you really looking to turn the US into Venezuela? So you're saying that capitalism requires that justice (or the evasion thereof) should have a price on it and be for sale? I wholly reject the idea that justice has a price on it. The only thing that has a price on it is quality of legal counsel. The two concepts are neither nor equivalent nor proxies for each other. I'm perfectly fine with the idea that people have to pay for the best attorneys if they want the best attorneys. What criminal defendants without resources get for free is good enough.
What else would you call this other than justice having a price on it? This kid was accused of stealing a backpack with contents worth maybe $1000.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/09/nyregion/kalief-browder-held-at-rikers-island-for-3-years-without-trial-commits-suicide.html
If he'd had the money for bail, he wouldn't have been stuck there.
If he'd had the money for a private attorney, he probably wouldn't have been stuck there.
In the mean time, people accused of murder, manslaughter, or whatever get to walk around free until their trial if they have enough money.
Further, when it comes to things such as evidence that was improperly obtained (illegal search, for example), wealth as a proxy for quality of the defense counsel certainly correlates with a better outcome for the defendant. To some extent, justice in the United States has a price on it, and it takes a certain level of wealth to afford it.
This is without even getting into bullshit like differences in prosecution and sentencing between street crime and white collar crime*, of things like that kid who got off the hook with the affluenza defense.
*For some well known examples, Charles Ponzi, the inventor of the Ponzi scheme, was sentenced to only five years in federal prison. That's not even twice what Kalief Browder ended up serving before he even had a trial. Some of the people who worked with Bernie Madoff on his Ponzi scheme didn't even go to prison. Generally, white collar crime gets lower sentences than street crimes despite involving magnitudes more value.
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Can today just slow the fuck down please?
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I love that he just went ahead and put Trump ahead of country as if that made it seem less selfish.
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They have what is best for Trump, which means Jared's family needs more loans from foreign banks.
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The critical thing to keep in mind when analyzing the legal system is understanding that justice is about the process, not the result. In the context of criminal law, the Sixth Amendment guarantees defendants the right to competent counsel. What this means is that criminal defendants are guaranteed (with caveats) an attorney who will, at a minimum, ensure that proper criminal process is followed in the prosecution of his client. If the attorney fails in this, and if that failure materially affects the outcome of the trial, then the sentence may be vacated. Now, I'll be the first to admit that this system isn't perfect in terms of eliminating all error, but it's pretty damned good in the big scheme of things. For the vast majority of cases, the person charged in fact committed the crime, even if the prosecution is unable to secure a guilty verdict.
What money buys a defendant in these cases is an attorney who 1) is less likely to overlook a procedural deficiency in the prosecution (but this is truly marginal), and, more importantly, 2) is more likely to either get a guilty person off of the hook or secure a lesser sentence for his client through strength of advocacy skills. I'll concede that there are problems with sentencing guidelines resulting disparities in sentencing among different groups, but this is a problem with the process and the law itself rather than a problem of wealth unduly influencing the judicial process.
Stated another way, money has more of an impact upon guilty people going free than innocent people getting convicted. For this reason, I don't see the free market aspects of access to legal assistance as a problem in the criminal system.
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No this is the best part of the Trump presidency - his staff playing out wars with each other in the media.
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On March 06 2018 13:01 xDaunt wrote:
The critical thing to keep in mind when analyzing the legal system is understanding that justice is about the process, not the result. In the context of criminal law, the Sixth Amendment guarantees defendants the right to competent counsel. What this means is that criminal defendants are guaranteed (with caveats) an attorney who will, at a minimum, ensure that proper criminal process is followed in the prosecution of his client. If the attorney fails in this, and if that failure materially affects the outcome of the trial, then the sentence may be vacated. Now, I'll be the first to admit that this system isn't perfect in terms of eliminating all error, but it's pretty damned good in the big scheme of things. For the vast majority of cases, the person charged in fact committed the crime, even if the prosecution is unable to secure a guilty verdict.
What money buys a defendant in these cases is an attorney who 1) is less likely to overlook a procedural deficiency in the prosecution (but this is truly marginal), and, more importantly, 2) is more likely to either get a guilty person off of the hook or secure a lesser sentence for his client through strength of advocacy skills. I'll concede that there are problems with sentencing guidelines resulting disparities in sentencing among different groups, but this is a problem with the process and the law itself rather than a problem of wealth unduly influencing the judicial process.
Stated another way, money has more of an impact upon guilty people going free than innocent people getting convicted. For this reason, I don't see the free market aspects of access to legal assistance as a problem in the criminal system.
You don't think it's a problem that being rich can get people out of consequences for flouting the law in small to medium ways?
I would also like your opinion on people pleading guilty or taking Alford pleas because they were held for excessively long times with a bail that they couldn't afford or the charges against them had really severe consequences if they were convicted. This is a way that money has an impact on innocent people being convicted.
Less important stuff:
+ Show Spoiler +Unrelated, my understanding of how overworked most public defenders are leads me to believe that evidence that was improperly acquired is going to slip through unless the defendant knows enough to suspect that it was improperly acquired and bring it up with his or her attorney. And if it does slip through, someone who was relying on a public defender is almost certainly not going to have the resources to appeal the result and have it vacated in anything approaching a timely fashion. Also, I'd like to contest your assertion that justice is about process not results. I know that from a technical perspective, you're probably right, but from a lay perspective, that seems horribly wrong. If you look at the case of Ethan Couch, the affluenza kid, he got out of jail because his family could afford to hire an expert witness to literally testify that because Ethan had not been punished for previous bad things, he also shouldn't be punished for this one. The psychologist literally cited previous unpunished criminal behavior such as driving without a license as a reason Ethan shouldn't be punished for his current criminal behavior. A psychologist testified for the defense that the teen is a product of something he called "affluenza" and doesn't link bad behavior with consequences because his parents taught him that wealth buys privilege, the psychologist said in court, according to media reports.
That psychologist cited one instance when the boy, then 15, was caught in a parked pickup with a naked 14-year-old girl who was passed out. He was never punished, the psychologist said, noting to the court that the teenager was allowed to drink at a very young age, and even began driving at 13. www.latimes.comNow, if you take a poor or lower middle class youth who was raised by a busy single parent or neglectful parents or something and wasn't ever punished for doing bad things, who started driving at 13, etc., and put them in a courtroom after they drove while drunk and people died because of it, that person isn't getting out of their conviction like this. When the same process leads to different outcomes based on the wealth of the accused, it's not justice anymore. Take money out of the equations, and either the rich kid or the poor kid didn't have a fair trial. Maybe the poor kid would have been acquitted given the facts of the case if he'd had the money to hire experts to organize and present the facts. Maybe the rich kid would have been convicted given the facts of the case, but had the money to hire experts to spin the facts and present them deceitfully. Either way, this process isn't just any more, because personal wealth, which is external to the facts and process, plays a part in outcomes.
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7815 Posts
I got a story, lawyer I know got out of murder/manslaughter because the police couldn't put him behind the wheel. But we all know he did it, we don't even associate with him anymore. He knew how to circumvent the system, and he ran with it.
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Trump keeps the best company.
Donald calls me 15 to 20 times a day,” Roy Cohn told me on the day we met. “He is always asking, ‘What is the status of this . . . and that?’ ”
It was 1980. I had been assigned to write a story on Donald Trump, the brash young developer who was then trying to make a name for himself in New York City, and I had come to see the man who, at the time, was in many ways Trump’s alter ego: the wily, menacing lawyer who had gained national renown, and enmity, for his ravenous anti-Communist grandstanding.
Trump was 34 and using the connections of his father, Brooklyn and Queens real-estate developer Fred Trump, as he navigated the rough-and-tumble world of political bosses.
...
The tabloids couldn’t get enough of the Trumps’ theatrics. And as Donald Trump’s Hyatt rose, so too did the hidden hand of his attorney Roy Cohn, always there to help with the shady tax abatements, the zoning variances, the sweetheart deals, and the threats to those who might stand in the project’s way.
Cohn was best known as a ruthless prosecutor. During the Red Scare of the 1950s, he and Wisconsin senator Joe McCarthy, the fabulist and virulent nationalist crusader, had hauled dozens of alleged “Communist sympathizers” before a Senate panel. Earlier, the House Un-American Activities Committee had skewered artists and entertainers on similar charges, resulting in a trail of fear, prison sentences, and ruined careers for hundreds, many of whom had found common cause in fighting Fascism. But in the decades since, Cohn had become the premier practitioner of hardball deal-making in New York, having mastered the arcane rules of the city’s Favor Bank (the local cabal of interconnected influence peddlers) and its magical ability to provide inside fixes for its machers and rogues.
www.vanityfair.com
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On March 06 2018 11:12 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2018 11:09 Plansix wrote:On March 06 2018 11:02 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 06 2018 11:00 Plansix wrote:On March 06 2018 10:55 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 06 2018 10:43 Plansix wrote:On March 06 2018 10:30 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 06 2018 10:25 Toadesstern wrote:On March 06 2018 09:34 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 06 2018 09:28 ticklishmusic wrote:
Public defenders are typically solid, if overworked. I would factor caseload into the quality of legal representation. There's basically no question that public defenders are shit, not by way of incompetence, but by way of unrealistic expectations. No private lawyer would ever consider the type of caseload a public defender sees. In my eyes, that's not justice, just going through the motions. I'm not really seeing any moral or ethical justifications either, outside of "money is god". EDIT: That's why I'm of the opinion our legal system is a farce run by brutes. I just don't see an alternative. You want an incentive for people to get good at their job and thus earn more than an "average" or "bad" lawyer, whatever that may be to you. So that's fine. But if I'm understanding your system correctly in that you have to pay your fees no matter if you win or lose that'd be a nice point to start changing something. At least make it so the one losing has to pay so that you can't just get spammed out by someone willing to pay a lot until you can't afford to fight it anymore. Again, just hearsay and no idea if it really works that way or if it's an exaggerationg. I can acknowledge fixing it isn't an easy job, but recognizing it's immoral and unethical core seems beyond nearly all of it's professionals. You would have to go state by state changing it to loser pays. All of our laws and basic civil procedures operate under the assumption that both sides pay. Damages too. Trying to do the entire system at once would do more harm than good. And sweeping reforms are less productive without continual oversight for abuses. We're not at the "fixing" part yet, we're at the getting professionals in the field to acknowledge the core premise of 'justice' is perverted by the system we have, regardless of how or if it can be fixed. We all know we work in an imperfect, flawed system. Agreeing on how to fix and improve it is the hard part. I've seen very few people in the legal field approach it from the position that the core goal of "justice" is systematically undermined by the way we pursue it. 'Flawed', sure, 'fundamentally unsound', not much buy-in to that from legal professionals. Most people in the legal field are generally more educated than on the subject and difficulties surrounding the justice system, so I’m not surprised. But if you find a quick fix, let us know. I think xDaunt speaks a lot more for the top rated minds of the legal fields on this than you do. Like I said, no one is arguing there's a quick or easy fix, but that the idea that the legal system can't achieve justice as it stands isn't one endorsed by the majority of the legal field even though it seems rather plain on it's face.
I've got a quick fix for you: jury nullification.
In big civil cases with juries the corollary would be: vote for the little(r) guy.
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EPT
