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Unoriginal Name posted:No you see rich people are an oppressed minority much like the gays. they are truly comparable when talking about legal representation. their status is entirely equivalent in this discussion. i am very smart Not a single person in this thread has said rich people are an oppressed minority. People have pointed out that historically minorities are the exact people that would not be happy only having access to only government issued defenders and that oppressed minorities are the exact people that historically would have been hurt the most if defending people simply accused of morally reprehensible crimes is a thing lawyers should be expected to avoid.
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Jun 12, 2019 02:43
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Ogmius815 posted:So trying to make rules for ethics is pointless because not everyone will follow them. Hmm. Arguments in D&D posts usually don't generalize well. In these arguments, universal language is often used, but the universal language is just a facade--really the arguments are ends-justify-the-means kinds of arguments against the posters' political and class enemies.
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Jun 12, 2019 02:45
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Yes all those poor minorities who would be hurt if they couldn't get the most expensive legal defense for the crime of being a big rapist facilitated by being rich and respected. The critique across the thread has consistently been some fomulation of "wealth and power facilitating greater immunity from the law is bad" and the other lot keep saying "if you say that about the wealthy and powerful what about the people who are the opposite of that HUHH??" and it's really stupid. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 02:54 on Jun 12, 2019 |
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Jun 12, 2019 02:48
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OwlFancier posted:.You can argue the details sure but the outcome is quite comparable in both cases, wealth = immunity from the law. The same happens in any society. Whether "wealth" is defined as dollars in the bank, or controlling a large number of serfs, or being a sufficiently zealous Soviet with the right connections.
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Jun 12, 2019 03:22
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OwlFancier posted:Ethics is not politics, do you understand this? Politics is 100% about morality. I think you of all people should understand this, since it seems that all of your posts in this thread and maybe (?) even on this politics message board are motivated by righteous indignation. silence_kit fucked around with this message at 03:30 on Jun 12, 2019 |
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Jun 12, 2019 03:27
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OwlFancier posted:The critique across the thread has consistently been some fomulation of "wealth and power facilitating greater immunity from the law is bad" and the other lot keep saying "if you say that about the wealthy and powerful what about the people who are the opposite of that HUHH??" and it's really stupid. Because minorities are the exact people that will shoulder the negative effects of every single poorly thought out "THIS WILL FUCKCK THE RICH!!!" vengeance fantasy thing people keep making up on how to change court systems. Marginalized groups are the exact people that are harmed if you take away legal protections. If you have a plan on how you'd change the legal system to take away rights because it'd make rich people lose a case that is cool, but it's not gonna stick to just hurting the people you wanted and marginalized groups are going to be the primary recipients of it.
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Jun 12, 2019 03:28
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:Because minorities are the exact people that will shoulder the negative effects of every single poorly thought out "THIS WILL FUCKCK THE RICH!!!" vengeance fantasy thing people keep making up on how to change court systems. Marginalized groups are the exact people that are harmed if you take away legal protections. If you have a plan on how you'd change the legal system to take away rights because it'd make rich people lose a case that is cool, but it's not gonna stick to just hurting the people you wanted and marginalized groups are going to be the primary recipients of it. What right is being taken away from the rich
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Jun 12, 2019 03:33
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silence_kit posted:Politics is 100% about morality. I think you of all people should understand this, since it seems that all of your posts in this thread and maybe (?) even on this politics message board are motivated by righteous indignation. No politics is (or should be) the practical application of morality, having a moral preference is not the same as having a policy that works. Decorum is a lovely moral ideal but an absolutely terrible policy in an inherently conflicting context. Hence why I'm constantly bolshy, because of the context. If people obeyed consistent moral principles then poltics would be as simple as just explaining a good moral principle and then everyone follows it, but it isn't. Like in the right context I am 100% for civilized discussion and non combative consensus decisions making. In fact I dream one day of living in a world where this method can be how we do politics, but we don't live in such a world and arguing in favour of the status quo as if that will somehow transition us into one is very silly, I think. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 03:38 on Jun 12, 2019 |
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Jun 12, 2019 03:35
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Unoriginal Name posted:What right is being taken away from the rich The right to terrorize and oppress poor people. By the way, I just want to let it be known, in case it wasn't clear or you weren't picking the following up from my fellow posters: rich people are bad.
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Jun 12, 2019 03:36
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Unoriginal Name posted:What right is being taken away from the rich None, because no one is implementing any of the extremely bad ideas people in this thread have had on trials should work. But the reason people keep bringing up minorities is that suggestions on how to make trials worse would disproportionately harm the people that already are least well served.
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Jun 12, 2019 03:38
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JoshGuitar posted:The same happens in any society. Whether "wealth" is defined as dollars in the bank, or controlling a large number of serfs, or being a sufficiently zealous Soviet with the right connections. If only there were some sort of political position that criticised that tendency and had suggestions as to why it might occur and what we might do about it. Also "it happens in all societies" does not mean it happens the same amount all the time everywhere and that nothing can be done to change the frequency and magnitude at which it occurs.
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Jun 12, 2019 03:41
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:None, because no one is implementing any of the extremely bad ideas people in this thread have had on trials should work. But the reason people keep bringing up minorities is that suggestions on how to make trials worse would disproportionately harm the people that already are least well served. In what way does removing private funding and publicly funding defense lawyers harm minorities
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Jun 12, 2019 03:45
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Dead Reckoning posted:"Zealous legal advocacy vs bribing judicial officials or doing other crimes to get a client off" is not at all an apt analogy to "zealous legal advocacy vs zealous legal advocacy for reasons I don't agree with". Oh well my argument is that it is. The reason why there's a correlation between legal outcomes and the amount of money one spends isn't because the rich are disproportionately charged with crimes they didn't commit. Justice is plainly for sale, I think it's silly to insist that what looks like money and connections and power subverting the courts is really just that 0.1% of lawyers are blessed with heroic zeal beyond the ken of mortal men. It's plainly the money and power and connections, not the legal talents of a few supermen at work here. But even if I grant your premise I think my argument still holds. If the justice the rich get is actually the closest our justice system can get to ideal justice, and they're actually getting away with a nearly ideal amount of crime, but it takes so much zeal to ensure a fair trial that only 0.1% of people can afford to buy enough legal zeal, then the system is so hilariously unjust that wringing our hands about whether peasants who are denied justice are unjustly saying mean things about the rich is a bad joke. I still say that the consequentialist case would prioritize reforming the system, that reform isn't going to happen if we don't align the interests of the rich with our own by subjecting them to the same unjust system as everyone else, and therefore shaming lawyers affording special privilege to the rich is a moral imperative. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 05:15 on Jun 12, 2019 |
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Jun 12, 2019 05:08
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:None, because no one is implementing any of the extremely bad ideas people in this thread have had on trials should work. Yes they are, isn't that the point of the op, bitching that a scumbag lawyer suffered social and professional consequences?
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Jun 12, 2019 05:12
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First thing first- just gonna remind everybody that Sullivan lost his job of ensuring the safety and well-being of students because he's a rape apologist and actively disregarded concerns from students regarding their safety and well-being. The argument whether or not defense attorneys should face repercussions based on clients is 100% a strawman and anyone taking that side is either arguing in bad faith or has been duped by bad faith actors. Anyway, lots of abstract about rich lawyers vs public defenders as though there's some invisible "lawyer experience meter" and rich ones have a higher meter. Obviously experience matters and often more experienced lawyers will have established practices and be able to charge more but it's not the one to one just world bullshit that is being implied here. The real difference, which affects every lawyer, regardless of skill and experience, is preparation time. Scrutinizing evidence, preparing witnesses, researching case law, planning arguments, etc. Ideally, for our adversarial system, both prosecution and defense should have access to the same resources and level of preparation and thus everything is presented to the judge and jury with maximal accuracy and little undeclared bias. However, in practice, the level of preparation can vary wildly, which will make a big difference for how the judge and jury will perceive the evidence presented. Imagine a damning fingerprint is presented in a trial. A prepared defense could be ready to attack potential gaps in the lifted fingerprint, show how common the patterns used to identify really are and how many other possible matches there were, bring a forensics expert on stand to explain all the flaws with fingerprint analysis, or list case precedent where similar prints were dismissed as evidence. An unprepared defense will simply have to let the fingerprint enter evidence without objection. The nature of the evidence itself won't change but with the context of preparation a jury might be more skeptical of what that evidence means, making them far more likely to vote not guilty. Preparation is where money makes the difference. To my understanding, public defenders are typically saddled with multiple cases and make a relatively low salary. If they want to spend time doing proper prep work for a case it will mean neglecting focus on other cases and/or sacrificing personal time with no extra pay. Private law firms, meanwhile, can put multiple lawyers on a single case, getting weeks worth of work done in a single day, each manhour of which is billable giving the firm plenty of incentive to do so. So there's effectively two worlds going on in our criminal justice system- prosecutors submitting plea deals to the wealthy in hopes that a slap on the wrist is worth the time they'll waste in court getting every piece of evidence dismissed and public defenders bargaining down the plea deal hoping the government is willing to only slightly oppress their client to save time getting a full conviction. None of this is actually based on factual guilt- rich people aren't getting off because the evidence is on their side and poor people aren't getting convicted because the evidence is against them. Most cases don't even go to trial because everyone knows how it actually works and plea deals are more convenient to everyone. Except those who are robbed of justice by this guaranteed punishment for the poor and safety net for the rich.
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Jun 12, 2019 10:14
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Unoriginal Name posted:In what way does removing private funding and publicly funding defense lawyers harm minorities In effect, the problem remains, and now the powerful get free legal representation.
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Jun 12, 2019 11:48
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Indeterminacy posted:If the state is insistent on lawyers being more accessible to the wealthy/white/powerful, then recognising that the public purse is limited, publicly funding all defense lawyers and submitting the same kind of legal representation for people across the board means when savings are needed, the cuts are made to those who serve the poor/black/vulnerable. How do you feel about universal healthcare?
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Jun 12, 2019 11:52
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OwlFancier posted:How do you feel about universal healthcare? Universal health care is real good but also historically does underserve certain minorities dramatically. Every system should be absolutely perfect at all times with no flaws, but they should also be designed to take account of what happens if they ever aren't.
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Jun 12, 2019 12:47
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We already have that result tho. "We can't try to do good things, what if they end up like they are right now but things are worse for me? 
Harold Fjord fucked around with this message at 12:58 on Jun 12, 2019 |
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Jun 12, 2019 12:54
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Nevvy Z posted:We already have that result tho. good things includes systems that work as well as possible even when they fail. Especially when the ways they can fail are well understood. Having everything just be perfect forever with no mistakes would be best, but in times that it isn't you can control what second best options are available.
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Jun 12, 2019 13:14
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"the current mode of failure is well understood and it doesn't affect me. Since things can't be perfect we daren't try to improve them any. They might get worse for me" You are repeating yourself.
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Jun 12, 2019 13:21
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Nevvy Z posted:"the current mode of failure is well understood and it doesn't affect me. Since things can't be perfect we daren't try to improve them any. They might get worse for me" Improving things includes safety nets.
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Jun 12, 2019 13:33
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Indeterminacy posted:If the state is insistent on lawyers being more accessible to the wealthy/white/powerful, then recognising that the public purse is limited, publicly funding all defense lawyers and submitting the same kind of legal representation for people across the board means when savings are needed, the cuts are made to those who serve the poor/black/vulnerable. If the argument is justice is impossible, then we shouldn't be putting anyone in jail at all
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Jun 12, 2019 13:37
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:Improving things includes safety nets. Are you saying you are opposed to safety nets also? I had already imagined that to be the case but I want to make sure I understand that that's what you mean because you are not very clear here. Maybe we should aim to not need safety nets because engaging with or being engaged by our legal system should not be akin to a risk of a drop from a deadly height. Harold Fjord fucked around with this message at 14:29 on Jun 12, 2019 |
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Jun 12, 2019 13:54
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Indeterminacy posted:If the state is insistent on lawyers being more accessible to the wealthy/white/powerful, then recognising that the public purse is limited, publicly funding all defense lawyers and submitting the same kind of legal representation for people across the board means when savings are needed, the cuts are made to those who serve the poor/black/vulnerable. Ah so what we see in funding disparities to, say, elementary schools now. And so the argument goes that universal primary and secondary education is just a handout to the rich, so it should be abolished and the poor have their education taken away completely in order to stick it to the rich and force them to send their kids to the private schools they're already sending them to. Also I suppose I should be against universal health care, because if we control drug prices or make them free, Bill Gates will save money on insulin, therefore instead millions of poor people should keep going bankrupt and dying from being unable to afford insulin so that those high insulin prices will really 'stick it' to Bill Gates should he ever need to buy it.
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Jun 12, 2019 14:59
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Unoriginal Name posted:In what way does removing private funding and publicly funding defense lawyers harm minorities I'm not sure how possible it would be to even remove private funding. You could have a system in which only certain lawyers employed by the government are allowed to argue in court, but you would still presumably have rich people hiring more lawyers to research, investigate, construct arguments, etc, and them present them to the defense counsel to be used in court. And if the stuff turned up by the private lawyers was real and useful and pertinent it would be pretty hosed up for the lawyer appointed by the government to make the best case for their client to say "no, we're not going to use it, because gently caress you richy rich."
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Jun 12, 2019 15:30
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wateroverfire posted:I'm not sure how possible it would be to even remove private funding. You could have a system in which only certain lawyers employed by the government are allowed to argue in court, but you would still presumably have rich people hiring more lawyers to research, investigate, construct arguments, etc, and them present them to the defense counsel to be used in court. And if the stuff turned up by the private lawyers was real and useful and pertinent it would be pretty hosed up for the lawyer appointed by the government to make the best case for their client to say "no, we're not going to use it, because gently caress you richy rich." The implication here is that real useful and pertinent information is excluded from the trials of anyone who isn't rich right now. 99.9% of the time justice isn't being done because trials are "pretty hosed up". If that's the case then the justice system is a joke and I'm not sure why I should care about whether rich people are treated like poor people are or not. Clearly the solution to the problem of defense counsels not having enough evidence isn't "ok only give enough evidence to Harvey Weinstein" It seems to me that if it costs a million dollars to prepare a proper defense in an adversarial system, then the government shouldn't charge anyone with a crime if it doesn't think it's worth spending a million dollars of tax money to ensure a fair trial. Anything short of that is just locking up people for the crime of not being a millionaire. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 15:37 on Jun 12, 2019 |
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Jun 12, 2019 15:34
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Leave aside Sullivan for the moment. There are two big problems with saying "social pressure on lawyers who represent clients a community doesn't like is fine and good". The first, and this was brought up earlier in the thread but bears repeating, is that different communities are going to have different standards for that sort of thing and if that's an acceptable ethic, then defendants who don't evoke sympathy are going to suffer. Not just rich assholes, but anyone accused of something heinous whether they're guilty or not. Which leads into the second problem, which is that the community REALLY, REALLY OFTEN gets it wrong and jumps to conclusions that have nothing to do with the truth. Just because someone is accused of a thing doesn't mean they're guilty, or that the details that filter out to the public and get amplified are correct, or even that the thing happened at all (lol Sabrina Erdely). So the more the legal system is insulated from that kind of pressure, IMO, the better.
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Jun 12, 2019 15:43
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wateroverfire posted:Leave aside Sullivan for the moment. If communities are going to have different standards, then by definition they will disagree on acceptable ethics so the communities that want to shame lawyers for bad reasons aren't going to agree with your ethic anyway. E: like if I have the power to mystically compel people to agree to any ethic I want, then I don't have to choose "never criticize a lawyer", I can choose "representing gay people is good, representing rich assholes is bad"
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Jun 12, 2019 15:45
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VitalSigns posted:If communities are going to have different standards, then by definition they will disagree on acceptable ethics so the communities that want to shame lawyers for bad reasons aren't going to agree with your ethic anyway. We're talking about a principle, aren't we? I have no power to compel any community to take any particular stance on this and I wouldn't expect anything to change as a result of us arguing on the forums.
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Jun 12, 2019 16:00
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Here’s a good question: are posters like OwlFancier interested in the consistency of their reasoning? Are they interested in basing their positions on a set of more or less consistent ethical ideas? I ask because when I suggested we should consider universalizing our reasoning (a very common tool in ethical debate) I was accuse of playing Lord of the Universe who Makes the Rules. Also given some of his posting I am worried that OwlFancier specifically isn’t interested in any discussion of legal ethics and all of his positions are just a facade for his true maxim “hurt rich people”.
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Jun 12, 2019 16:04
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wateroverfire posted:We're talking about a principle, aren't we? I have no power to compel any community to take any particular stance on this and I wouldn't expect anything to change as a result of us arguing on the forums. If it's all just principles we should support the good thing and not hem and haw about these communities that might want to do bad things
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Jun 12, 2019 16:06
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wateroverfire posted:We're talking about a principle, aren't we? I have no power to compel any community to take any particular stance on this and I wouldn't expect anything to change as a result of us arguing on the forums. But the only argument for that principle is that bigots will somehow agree to follow it if I do and that this will improve the position of minorities. If bigots won't agree to follow it (spoiler: they won't), and only I am agreeing to follow it, then the result isn't an improvement for minorities, the result is just me letting rich people get away with poo poo.
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Jun 12, 2019 16:06
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Ogmius815 posted:Here’s a good question: are posters like OwlFancier interested in the consistency of their reasoning? Are they interested in basing their positions on a set of more or less consistent ethical ideas? I ask because when I suggested we should consider universalizing our reasoning (a very common tool in ethical debate) I was accuse of playing Lord of the Universe who Makes the Rules. Also given some of his posting I am worried that OwlFancier specifically isn’t interested in any discussion of legal ethics and all of his positions are just a facade for his true maxim “hurt rich people”. i, too, am extremely concerned about the rising tide of anti-rich sentiment in this country
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Jun 12, 2019 16:09
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Ogmius815 posted:Here’s a good question: are posters like OwlFancier interested in the consistency of their reasoning? Are they interested in basing their positions on a set of more or less consistent ethical ideas? I ask because when I suggested we should consider universalizing our reasoning (a very common tool in ethical debate) I was accuse of playing Lord of the Universe who Makes the Rules. That's not what universalizing our reasoning means. I think scumbag lawyers who help rich people get away with crimes should be shamed, and good lawyers who defend oppressed people should be lauded. I am ok with universalizing this maxim and saying that everyone should think scumbag lawyers who defend the rich should be shamed and good lawyers who defend gays should be lauded. Universalizing our reasoning doesn't mean that I have to believe all lawyers should be lauded or all lawyers should be shamed. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 16:11 on Jun 12, 2019 |
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Jun 12, 2019 16:09
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Like I think people who do crimes should be punished. This should be a universal maxim, everyone should agree people who do crimes should be punished. Someone might say "ah but other people might disagree with you about what is a crime, if they think being gay is a crime, and you convince them crimes should be punished, then they will punish gay people!" Well yes they would but then what I need to do is convince them that being gay shouldn't be a crime, not that we should never punish any crimes ever.
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Jun 12, 2019 16:15
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VitalSigns posted:That's not what universalizing our reasoning means. But one of the bedrock ideas of the legal system is that it’s inappropriate to make these kinds of value judgments before the fact. This is just as stupid as the people who say that people who “definitely” committed what they deem to be sufficiently serious crimes can be properly denied due process.
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Jun 12, 2019 16:31
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Ogmius815 posted:But one of the bedrock ideas of the legal system is that it’s inappropriate to make these kinds of value judgments before the fact. This is just as stupid as the people who say that people who “definitely” committed what they deem to be serious crimes can be properly denied due process. luckily I don't have to care about this because Summers isn't being put on trial for a crime, he's being subject to social opprobrium for doing something lovely, which is fine. We don't have to convict people of a crime before we say they suck, in fact people can suck a whole lot without doing any crimes at all!
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Jun 12, 2019 16:33
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You also haven’t bothered to deal with the fact that not all communities will agree with your sense of who is a hero and who is a scumbag. That doesn’t seem to trouble you because for some weird you seem to assume the mob will always be on your side. That’s dumb and you’re dumb. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jun 12, 2019 16:37
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VitalSigns posted:Like I think people who do crimes should be punished. Do crimes as determined by what? You just telling us because you just know inherently? Before the trial?
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Jun 12, 2019 16:40
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