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No, just to prevent asset seizure while it's pending. The appeal goes forward regardless
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Mar 25, 2024 21:54
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:There's a recurring pattern of legal analysts going "Trump is hosed, unless the judges abandon all prior precedent" and then the "unless " keeps happening anyway. This is one more data point in that trend line. The explanation in that WaPo article seems likely to me. The optics of taking property are bad and given something goes wrong in appeal paying Trump back money has twice the political benefit for Trump- first by making him look like a martyr (by capturing his property in the first place) and second by making him look innocent (by giving him back some property or money) even if he still is required to pay 175+ million dollars.
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Mar 25, 2024 21:56
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Constantly giving him second and third chances nobody else gets also makes him look like he's winning. Who cares
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Mar 25, 2024 22:00
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Deteriorata posted:It's just a bond he has to post in order to appeal. It's not the final judgment. What's the problem? Because he should be required to post the full amount of the bond, just like any other defendant. It's not even like anyone looking at the appeal thinks it has a fair chance of winning on either the law, the facts, or anything else. It does not impede his appellate rights to be required to meet the usual appelate requirements. Fuschia tude posted:Whether Trump pays a 9 figure civil judgement next week or not will not affect his ability to run or win an election in the slightest. Yes, it may. Campaigns cost money.
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Mar 25, 2024 22:03
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Well, consider that Trump will be spending September to November potentially losing his appeal instead of having Americans forget this case happened by August.
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Mar 25, 2024 22:11
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Shammypants posted:Well, consider that Trump will be spending September to November potentially losing his appeal instead of having Americans forget this case happened by August. Nothing about the bond enforcement changes today effects his appeal at all.
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Mar 25, 2024 22:21
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Shammypants posted:Well, consider that Trump will be spending September to November potentially losing his appeal instead of having Americans forget this case happened by August. I'd prefer that he have no cash for campaigning between now and November, and then spend September to November in one of his several criminal trials.
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Mar 25, 2024 22:21
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you need to let trump win, otherwise he'll use that loss to win later. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Mar 25, 2024 22:29
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Rust Martialis posted:News articles by various legal types said it was quite possible the appeals court would vary the bond conditions. I have trouble reading "Legal experts say Trump has a chance of getting some type of relief from the appeals court." as "it's likely and reasonable that he's granted an extension and his bond is cut by more than 2/3." This reads to me more like hedging, but it's a fair point that it wasn't as black and white as I was positioning it. How often does something like that actually happen?
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Mar 25, 2024 22:29
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Sure, but you'll notice they never cite actual precedent or law. They're just smart enough at this point to realize donny wriggles often manages to wriggle. NY Bar Association article on appeals https://nysba.org/NYSBA/Coursebooks/Fall%202013%20CLE%20Coursebooks/NYAppellate2/1.NutsandBoltsHasapidis.pdf quote:The amount of the undertaking is set after a motion on notice in the So apparently Engoron may have had discretion to not set the amount of the supersedeas bond to the full amount. If so, the appellate court would presumably be able to vary it. Anyone got a link to the court document to see if Engoron specifically set the amount?
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Mar 25, 2024 22:36
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Shammypants posted:The explanation in that WaPo article seems likely to me. The optics of taking property are bad and given something goes wrong in appeal paying Trump back money has twice the political benefit for Trump- first by making him look like a martyr (by capturing his property in the first place) and second by making him look innocent (by giving him back some property or money) even if he still is required to pay 175+ million dollars. Yeah that falls under "judicial cowardice." The law is the law the phrase "optics" is not featured in it. Optics are not the law. Nobody other than Trump gets the benefit of such optics.
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Mar 25, 2024 22:38
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Yeah that falls under "judicial cowardice." The law is the law the phrase "optics" is not featured in it. Optics are not the law. Nobody other than Trump gets the benefit of such optics. How do you think that interacts with the bar association document in the post above yours?
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Mar 25, 2024 22:40
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Rust Martialis posted:NY Bar Association article on appeals This feels useless to parse unless you're a lawyer with understanding of New York law and precedence. None of those words mean anything in isolation, and you can read them in any number of different, reasonable ways. My understanding of reading that (as some random jackoff) is the section this is for is for the conditions to grant an automatic stay. This part suggests it's up to the Court's discretion as to whether or not they want to grant a stay that's outside the bounds of what's automatic (ie put the whole amount in escrow or whatever): "Courts that wish to effectively deny the motion can do so by fixing the undertaking in the same amount as the total equitable award – many appellants will not be able to post such a large undertaking."
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Mar 25, 2024 22:50
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cr0y posted:No, he has to pay/bond 175m to have his appeal move forward for the original (half billion) judgement [In ten days] perhaps the justice system should make this even more amenable to the rich powerful criminal
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Mar 25, 2024 22:51
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Yeah that falls under "judicial cowardice." The law is the law the phrase "optics" is not featured in it. Optics are not the law. Nobody other than Trump gets the benefit of such optics. The point of a bond is not to be punitive in itself. It's a guarantee that the litigant will be able to pay the fine at the end of the day, and not let them use the appeals process as a means of hiding their wealth or fleeing the country to avoid paying. In Trump's case, they've already got his assets under lockdown with a court-appointed overseer. They know what and where his assets are and they're not going anywhere. If he flees the country, his assets will stay here. Bonds normally work by the litigant paying 10% of the face value to the bonding company and pledging assets for the rest - so if someone had taken his bond, he'd only be $50M out of pocket. The fact that no one would stake him to a half-billion dollar bond was a real issue. Trump had a valid point that expecting him to come up with the whole thing on his own was an unreasonable burden. So given that his assets are already locked down, $175M is four times what he would have been out of pocket with a bond. Barbara Jones is the effective guarantor of the rest of the fine. I can live with the situation.
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Mar 25, 2024 22:52
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so I saw on the news that even though the law said "consequences" the law then changed it's mind to "much less consequences", very cool
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Mar 25, 2024 22:52
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Subjunctive posted:How do you think that interacts with the bar association document in the post above yours? You can read Engoron's order here: https://www.scribd.com/document/706...8#1fullscreen=1 It seems pretty solid to me! The actual court decisions undergirding that cited bar association document can be found here: quote:The standard for obtaining a discretionary stay under CPLR 5519(c) consists of meeting three requirements. (a) the likelihood of success on the merits, (b) irreparable injury in the absence of injunctive relief, and (c) the balancing of the equities between the parties. See Seitzman v. Hudson Riv. Assoc. (1st Dept. 1987) 126 A.D.2d 211 513 NYS 2d 148, Alexandru v. Pappas (2nd Dept. 2009) 68 A.D.3d 690; 890 N.Y.S.2d 593. https://jdbar.com/articles/discretionary-stay-enforcement-cplr-5519-c/ Importantly, the court issuing this decision didn't have the guts to actually lay out such an analysis. They just issued a declarative opinion with no citations or support. That's why I diagnose judicial cowardice in this instance. Judges who actually think they're right are not afraid to say why, in detail. If a judicial opinion doesn't explain itself, it's either a routine opinion where everybody knows why they're right anyway so it doesn't have to be stated, OR they don't want to have to explain themselves because if they did someone might embarrass them by showing why they're wrong. We know which situation this is; you can tell by the fact that everybody is trying to come up with explanations. Deteriorata posted:The point of a bond is not to be punitive in itself. It's a guarantee that the litigant will be able to pay the fine at the end of the day, and not let them use the appeals process as a means of hiding their wealth or fleeing the country to avoid paying. That's a fair point, except .. . dude has already been found guilty. This is not a pretrial bond, it's an appeal bond. The reason he couldn't get staked is that he's probably actually broke. His creditors are entitled to their money; there's no sense in making them wait and allowing him in the meanwhile to accrue other secured debts against his assets, which might reduce the creditor's ability to gain recompense down the road. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 23:03 on Mar 25, 2024 |
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Mar 25, 2024 22:58
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Main Paineframe posted:The bond is not intended to be a consequence. It's just something to ensure he has skin in the game. If he wins the appeal, he gets it all back; if he loses the appeal, it goes toward the judgment amount. Oh gently caress off. Don't twist my words. Trump is a narcissist who doesn't give a drat about his kids other than that he wants to gently caress one and that their 'success' reflects back on him. My point wasn't 'blood for the blood god' it was that one of the points of civil penalties is to deter poo poo behavior. If Trump goes to the grave without ever facing anything but a tut-tut finger wag for decades of fraud and criminal behavior, the justice system has failed, even if his kids lose some of their inherentance after the fact.
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Mar 25, 2024 22:59
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Caros posted:Oh gently caress off. Don't twist my words. You understand today's ruling while sucking didn't reduce the actual penalties he is facing overall just the amount he needs to pay to avoid liquidation during an appeal.
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Mar 25, 2024 23:10
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Randalor posted:So does this mean anyone else who gets hit with bail can argue that they should only have to pay ~35% of the listed amount and get away with it?
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Mar 25, 2024 23:15
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bird food bathtub posted:The source of frustration for me is the slap-in-the-face double standard on display. Trump gets his bond more than halved and gets ten extra days because he's a very special boy and needs to be given the extra nice treatment while people every day across the country are picked up on piddling bullshit charges then get locked away without one one-thousandth of one percent of the grace and deference given to the worlds largest fraudster and most obvious liar. Trump threatens the existence of civil society as we know it in the country right now with violent insurrection and in exchange he gets eternal second chances, extended deadlines, reductions, more extensions and chances for appeal. Someone who threatens a stop sign or what ever gets their rear end locked up at light goddamn speed, gets told to go gently caress themselves with a cactus if they don't have money, and has stuff like their home, their family, or their job taken away without anyone giving a poo poo or a second look. Yeah, this is where I am with it. Basically this: Rust Martialis posted:the court prefers not to inflict irreparable harm while appeals are pending doesn't seem like the kind of argument that would have a lot of success if you were trying to argue your way out of cash bail you couldn't afford in order to not lose your job - and that's not even post-conviction!
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Mar 25, 2024 23:16
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Rust Martialis posted:News articles by various legal types said it was quite possible the appeals court would vary the bond conditions. It's too bad the courts don't factor someone losing a job, a car, or home when a poor person has to spend time in court as "irreparable harm". But when a billionaire might lost a few multi million dollar properties that's considered "irreparable harm?" Good Lord what is wrong with this country.
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Mar 25, 2024 23:24
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I think we've had enough low content drive-bys for the day. "Lol what justice system?" has been expressed plenty. Thanks all.
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Mar 25, 2024 23:27
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Ynglaur posted:Because he should be required to post the full amount of the bond, just like any other defendant. It's not even like anyone looking at the appeal thinks it has a fair chance of winning on either the law, the facts, or anything else. It does not impede his appellate rights to be required to meet the usual appelate requirements. This is far from the first time that a massive bond has been reduced on appeal. Even when it comes to this specific NY law and this specific NY bond requirement. From the the Trump team's filing: quote:For this reason, courts routinely waive or reduce bond requirements when securing the bond is not "practicable." Fed. Prescription Serv., 636 F.2d at 760. See, e.g., Cayuga Indian Nation of New York v. Pataki, 188 F. Supp. 2d 223, 256 (N.D.N.Y. 2002) (waiving the bond requirement for a $247 million judgment where "it would be almost impossible to find a bonding agency willing and able to secure a judgment of this size," and "the posting of a supersedeas bond here would be far from practicable") (cleaned up); TWA, Inc. v. Hughes, 515 F.2d 173, 175 (2d Cir. 1975) (granting a substantial reduction of the bond amount where, "[b]ecause of the unprecedented size of the judgment, the obtaining of a supersedeas bond was impracticable"); Int'l Distribution Centers, 62 B.R. at 732 (finding that defendants were not "likely to be capable of posting a bond in the full amount of the approximately $38 million judgment," and reducing the bond requirement for each to $10,000); C. Albert Sauter Co. v. Richard S. Sauter Co., 368 F. Supp. 501, 520-21 (E.D. Pa. 1973) (allowing $100,000 bond on $1.5 million judgment). Of course, just because Trump's lawyer says something doesn't mean it's true, but I took a quick glance at each of those citations and they do appear to check out. For example, here's what Int'l Distribution Centers says on the matter: quote:Various courts, including the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, have held that a district judge may exercise discretion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure ("FRCP") 62(d) and the local civil rule of this Court. In Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Hughes, 515 F.2d 173 (2d Cir. 1975), cert. denied, 424 U.S. 934, 96 S.Ct. 1147, 47 L.Ed.2d 341 (1976), the Second Circuit stated that the district judge "quite properly held that he had the power to provide for a form and amount of security different from the supersedeas bond." Trans World at 176. Or, to tl;dr, the defendants in that case got hit with a $38 million judgment, and it was a NY case so they had to put up a $42 million bond (the amount of the judgment, plus 11%) in order to have the judgment stayed during their appeal. The judge took a look at what was known of the defendants' finances, declared that the defendants were unlikely to be able to afford a $38 million bond, and reduced their bonds to $10k each instead. And these defendants were presumably a lot poorer than Trump is, too!
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Mar 25, 2024 23:43
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Main Paineframe posted:This is far from the first time that a massive bond has been reduced on appeal. Even when it comes to this specific NY law and this specific NY bond requirement. But that's....that's....appropriate! The marginal utility of money! Defendants' rights! Loud noises! ....poo poo.
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Mar 25, 2024 23:51
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mdemone posted:But that's....that's....appropriate! The marginal utility of money! Defendants' rights! Loud noises! One completely legitimate framing of this issue is that for the legal system to treat you like a human being, you functionally have to be rich enough to have a good lawyer who has time to work your case. Which in effect means that justice has a price tag such that only the trumps of the world are afforded it. And that is not justice. But anything else would render the rest of the legal system cost prohibitive. I did the math once and almost all misdemeanor offenses, once I was appointed,the minute someone said "I would like to request a public defender", the county or city had immediately lost money on that ticket, and it just got worse for them from there. They would have been better off just instantly dismissing any misdemeanor case where the defendant bothered to show up and not hiring me to defend them. The financial math on justice doesn't work out. We generally can't afford the pricetag. Death penalty appeals are so expensive that lifetime incarceration is cheaper and makes more financial sense by far. But if money is no object you can get all the justice you can buy. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 00:08 on Mar 26, 2024 |
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Mar 26, 2024 00:01
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:One completely legitimate framing of this issue is that for the legal system to treat you like a human being, you functionally have to be rich enough to have a good lawyer who has time to work your case. This is part of what is eroding what little everyone sees of the justice system being a legitimate institution ^ I think deep down everyone understands you're supposed to get your day in court but Trump has made it his life to be in and out of court and he seemingly will never see a consequence. Take his property? Overvalued and he likely doesn't care good luck sorting through his shell game of ownership and creditors wanting their share. Take his money? He's been playing a Ponzi scheme with really stupid people's money for as long as I can remember. More than 50 million people (and more than one government entity that would love to buy influence, power, or worse) would be fine sending him money. Prison time? I'll gladly eat a perma if he ever spends more than a day in a prison cell, it just won't be happening - he will do what he's been doing all along, which is push the envelope and delay long enough for him to either wiggle his way out of or die before seeing any consequences. If he becomes President again? Forget about it, we didn't build a system where Presidents see consequences. For the average non-lawyer, this is exhaustingly demoralizing lucy of all football pulls seemingly daily
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Mar 26, 2024 00:28
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:One completely legitimate framing of this issue is that for the legal system to treat you like a human being, you functionally have to be rich enough to have a good lawyer who has time to work your case. May I steal this quote? It was well said.
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Mar 26, 2024 00:31
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mdemone posted:May I steal this quote? It was well said. can't steal words, man, they're price-less quote:“During the Vietnam War... every respectable artist in this country was against the war. It was like a laser beam. We were all aimed in the same direction. The power of this weapon turns out to be that of a custard pie dropped from a stepladder six feet high.”
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Mar 26, 2024 00:39
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Did they start picking the jury today or not This has to be interesting, I think it'd be tough to find an impartial jury. bird food bathtub posted:Huh, weird, he just said he has more than 500 million in cash Surely he meant 500 million Zimbabwe dollars, which is something like $1.5 mil USD.
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Mar 26, 2024 00:43
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Jury selection starts April 15. It would be fitting that the Stormy Daniels Hush Money is what gets Trump his first felony conviction since it was one of the first overtly criminal acts he was accused of. Murgos fucked around with this message at 01:10 on Mar 26, 2024 |
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Mar 26, 2024 01:06
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:One completely legitimate framing of this issue is that for the legal system to treat you like a human being, you functionally have to be rich enough to have a good lawyer who has time to work your case. I think one issue here about the misdemeanors is it frames the issue as being about the profit/expense for the city, when its about encouraging/discouraging behaviours. Presumably most people most of the time aren't knowingly violating laws/ordinances/etc and those the expense of someone regardless of being rightly or wrongly accused and lacking the means to hire their own lawyer, that cost is presumably worth it from the point of the government that everyone else is generally following it. The point of enforcing laws is not to derive a source of revenue, its pour encourager les autres. From a certain point of view it isn't about actually making Trump face consequence, but making it clear to anyone who thinks if just being rich means being immune from the law; which demonstrably Trump isn't immune, the complicating snag is what happens if he happens to win the Presidency, but normally in a sane universe no one like Trump should have ever been remotely near plausibly the next President and not relevant to the system as a whole; because systems aren't really about their "stars aligning outliers" but about how it generally works to do the things its intending to do. These delay tactics only kinda have a shot at working because Trump has a non-zero chance of being President; (but also Trump likely never would've been in this legal mess in the first place if he were never President, so its a land of contrasts), otherwise these delays just make things worse for him in terms of his eventual penalties. People usually would've settled by now, not constantly violate gag orders, or do this many crimes. To be clear it sucks the extent in which being a member of the rich and powerful does a lot to insulate you from consequence, but this is universally true in any form of society we know; and generally by most measures being Rich And Powerful in the US goes a lot less far than it does in most other industrialized countries. Trump is an isolated case of stupid evil who is able to take advantage of the legal system and go as far as he is able to because of a confluence of overlapping factors that normally wouldn't be true most other times.
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Mar 26, 2024 01:20
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I did the math once and almost all misdemeanor offenses, once I was appointed,the minute someone said "I would like to request a public defender", the county or city had immediately lost money on that ticket, and it just got worse for them from there. They would have been better off just instantly dismissing any misdemeanor case where the defendant bothered to show up and not hiring me to defend them. But that’s the way it should work a for minor offense? It should not be a revenue-generating event for government. The point at a birds-eye level is to curtail the behavior, and if it cost more to afford due process to the violator before imposing the penalty, so be it. If you’re saying they were running a Ferguson-style ticket mill and failed, I agree with you it’s bad they even tried, but I’m not sure how this aside fits into your larger point about rich litigants specifically.
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Mar 26, 2024 01:25
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can't stump the Trump (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Mar 26, 2024 01:32
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Main Paineframe posted:This is far from the first time that a massive bond has been reduced on appeal. Even when it comes to this specific NY law and this specific NY bond requirement. Cayuga Indian Nation v Pataki also contains the following paragraph: quote:"On the other hand, the State [requesting a stay] cannot show the requisite irreparable harm absent a stay. The State's argument of irreparable harm is seriously undermined "by the well-established principle that quantifiable money damages cannot be deemed irreparable harm." See Harris v. Butler, 961 F. Supp. 61, 63 (S.D.N.Y.1997) (citing, inter alia, Tucker Anthony Realty Corp. v. Schlesinger, 888 F.2d 969, 975 (2d Cir.1989)). Because the judgment herein is only for "quantifiable money damages," the State is unable to establish this particular stay element." Main Paineframe posted:Or, to tl;dr, the defendants in that case got hit with a $38 million judgment, and it was a NY case so they had to put up a $42 million bond (the amount of the judgment, plus 11%) in order to have the judgment stayed during their appeal. The judge took a look at what was known of the defendants' finances, declared that the defendants were unlikely to be able to afford a $38 million bond, and reduced their bonds to $10k each instead. And these defendants were presumably a lot poorer than Trump is, too! International Distribution Centers is based on the circumstance of the defendant corporation declaring bankruptcy in the face of an antitrust issue, while the five human defendants did not declare bankruptcy, so naturally it wouldn't be reasonable to put them on the hook for the entire $38 million. That is an unusual circumstance, while Trump saying "I don't wanna put of $454 million" is not at all unusual. Note that both of the above decisions are federal, but based on claims under New York state law. By contrast, C. Albert Sauter, was a federal anti-trust case based on the former federal rules of appellate procedure, and so the New York Court of Appeals could ignore it even more easily than the other two. The court in Sauter did not require a full undertaking to be posted because "execution is most likely to terminate Richard S. Sauter Co., Inc. as a going concern and eliminate it as a competitor in interstate commerce," and further required the defendants to escrow what looks like a significant chunk of their financial assets to the court, including all of Richard Sauter's shares of Richard S. Sauter, Inc. Donald Trump has faced no such requirements and his appeal does not even represent to the court that the judgment would require the insolvency of the Trump Organization. In TWA v Hughes itself, the trial court waived the bond requirement, but the judgment was for $145 million and Toolco posted a letter of credit for $75 million and secured the balance by maintaining a value of the business of at least three times $83 million, as determined by handing over audited quarterly statements. So the decision to grant Trump a reduction in the bond requirement on grounds of hardship and without requiring any sort of alternate arrangements as in TWA or Sauter, or with a showing of unusual circumstances, as in International Distribution Centers or Cayuga, is by no means a slam dunk, so until and unless the New York court actually issues a memorandum explaining its order, the annoyance is understandable.
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Mar 26, 2024 02:08
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I understand that as a matter of practice the Supreme Court does not grant cert on this type of issues (issues of fact, state law, etc.), but is there anything actually stopping them from carving out an exception for “unprecedented circumstances” or whatever?
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Mar 26, 2024 02:22
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Charliegrs posted:It's too bad the courts don't factor someone losing a job, a car, or home when a poor person has to spend time in court as "irreparable harm". But when a billionaire might lost a few multi million dollar properties that's considered "irreparable harm?" Good Lord what is wrong with this country. The appellate court didn't find irreparable harm from having to sell his properties. As far as I can see, the court didn't find anything. Just "$454 million? Nah, $175 should be fine."
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Mar 26, 2024 02:38
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yronic heroism posted:But that’s the way it should work a for minor offense? It should not be a revenue-generating event for government. The point at a birds-eye level is to curtail the behavior, and if it cost more to afford due process to the violator before imposing the penalty, so be it. If you’re saying they were running a Ferguson-style ticket mill and failed, I agree with you it’s bad they even tried, but I’m not sure how this aside fits into your larger point about rich litigants specifically. You're familiar with the quote about how if the penalty for something is a fine, then that penalty only exists for those who can't pay it? There are two types of penalties, functionally, the legal system can impose: incarceration and fines. Most misdemeanors (traffic offenses, etc) incarceration is massive overkill. But they also tend to be crimes of poverty -- e.g., "driving under suspension," which in practice is just fining people who can't afford to pay the fees to un-suspend their license. What are they gonna do? Not drive to work? How do you want them to pay the fine? So the alternative is incarceration, which is expensive and pointless given the triviality of the "crime." AS offenses get more serious, sure, many crimes people think "ok, we need to use imprisonment as deterrence." But that doesn't actually work, for multiple reasons. The first is that criminals don't think they're going to get caught, so they aren't deterred by the threat of imprisonment (this is somewhat of a truism). The more important factor though is that if you give a good enough defense lawyer enough time, in the vast majority of cases, they'll be able to find *some* serious flaw in the prosecution's case, just because cops are at best flawed human beings like everyone else and usually somebody fucks up somewhere. This turns most criminal law into, essentially, a game of roulette, where you can keep criming as long as your lawyers are good enough to minimize your losses and you never draw a card that kicks you out of the game. (Sometimes, yes, the cops get people dead to rights; that's your bad luck. Sometimes you roll a Nat 1). That general luck-of-the-draw nature of the legal system continues all the way up and down the scale. Death penalty cases are so expensive and difficult to prosecute because they attract the best defense attorneys who have the most time, who usually manage to find some really severe prosecutorial fuckups. For most defense attorney work, it's about trying to get the best return on time invested in each case. Rich litigants can break that attention / time curve in a different way, by hiring attorneys to litigate and analyze every tiny angle to death on even the most trivial offenses. The richer the defendant is, the more attorney time they can pay for, the more likely an attorney digs far enough to find something like juicy gossip about which prosecutor is banging which other prosecutor or whatever. When the defendant is as wealthy as trump, they can spend all the money and find everything, and because prosecutors and cops almost always fuckup somehow --- Fani Willis is the norm, not the exception -- that means it's almost impossible to convict someone like Trump of anything, ever. Not totally impossible. But the prosecutorial team has to out-man-hour the defense team while also not loving up anything in the case anywhere, because if they gently caress up anywhere, the defense will find it, and that's your whole case shot. That's pretty hard!
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Mar 26, 2024 03:01
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:You're familiar with the quote about how if the penalty for something is a fine, then that penalty only exists for those who can't pay it? Then why have a justice system at all? If fines are only a deterent to those who can't afford them, and incareration doesn't work because the threat isn't real, then why not say "once you hit $x you get the DLC that makes you immune from all consequences and we won't even bother trying to stop you"? I know everyone's going to come in here and say that's how it is already, but I'm saying why bother with performance theater? fake edit - if your rule of law can't apply to everyone, then it's broken and needs to be replaced. No I don't know what the fix is, but if hitting a certain economic marker makes you invincible, it can never work. C. Everett Koop fucked around with this message at 03:18 on Mar 26, 2024 |
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Mar 26, 2024 03:15
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C. Everett Koop posted:Then why have a justice system at all? If fines are only a deterent to those who can't afford them, and incareration doesn't work because the threat isn't real, then why not say "once you hit $x you get the DLC that makes you immune from all consequences and we won't even bother trying to stop you"? I know everyone's going to come in here and say that's how it is already, but I'm saying why bother with performance theater? “Our democratic civilization has been built, not by children of darkness but by foolish children of light. It has been under attack by the children of darkness, by the moral cynics, who declare that a strong nation need acknowledge no law beyond its strength. It has come close to complete disaster under this attack, not because it accepted the same creed as the cynics; but because it underestimated the power of self-interest, both individual and collective, in modern society. The children of light have not been as wise as the children of darkness.” “It must be understood that the children of light are foolish not merely because they underestimate the power of self-interest among the children of darkness. They underestimate this power among themselves The democratic world came so close to disaster not merely because it never believed that Nazism possessed the demonic fury which it avowed. Civilization refused to recognize the power of class interest in its own communities. It also spoke glibly of an international conscience; but the children of darkness meanwhile skillfully set nation against nation. They were thereby enabled to despoil one nation after another, without every civilized nation coming to the defence of each. Moral cynicism had a provisional advantage over moral sentimentality. Its advantage lay not merely in its own lack of moral scruple but also in its shrewd assessment of the power of self-interest, individual and national, among the children of light, despite their moral protestations.”
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Mar 26, 2024 03:31
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