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Discendo Vox posted:I don't have the link to the article at the moment, but there was apparently a really horrible situation with sovcit pro se defendants in, iirc, Baltimore a while back. The defendants ran up such an extensive set of court costs that the prosectuion had to stop pursuing part of their case- with the result being that others in the prisoners' orbit learned the lesson that sovcit is correct and "Works". At some point you'd think jurisdictions would write some sort of rule into their local rules limiting baseless defenses or claims, with the judge given the discretion to just toss things as soon as they come up. I realize the possibility of abuse by the court to normal people's rights becomes much higher, but I'm sure you could narrowly tailor it so situations like the one you posted are the only ones affected.
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Jul 8, 2015 19:46
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Pook Good Mook posted:At some point you'd think jurisdictions would write some sort of rule into their local rules limiting baseless defenses or claims, with the judge given the discretion to just toss things as soon as they come up. You basically answered your own question there- it's really not possible to perform that sort of tailoring in a way that doesn't either make this discretion highly vulnerable to abuse, or highly costly to litigate/appeal.
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Jul 8, 2015 19:49
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Discendo Vox posted:I don't have the link to the article at the moment, but there was apparently a really horrible situation with sovcit pro se defendants in, iirc, Baltimore a while back. The defendants ran up such an extensive set of court costs that the prosectuion had to stop pursuing part of their case- with the result being that others in the prisoners' orbit learned the lesson that sovcit is correct and "Works". Mentioned before, but every time one of these comes up in Canada (more or less), thanks to Associate Chief Justice Rooke of the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench, they get dealt with quickly: http://canlii.ca/t/fsvjq (it's worth a read, or at least a quick skim, anyway) They are now referred to as "Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Argument [OPCA] Litigants" in Canada under the guidance of this case.
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Jul 8, 2015 20:07
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Drewjitsu posted:Mentioned before, but every time one of these comes up in Canada (more or less), thanks to Associate Chief Justice Rooke of the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench, they get dealt with quickly: That is one of the most amazing things I've ever read (and this isn't the first time I've seen it, I read it a long time ago), and it's one of the very few things that makes me proud of my province in any way. That judge did a wonderful thing.
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Jul 9, 2015 07:40
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http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/07/08/420913118/does-it-matter-that-95-of-elected-prosecutors-are-white opinions relating to this article?
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Jul 9, 2015 09:48
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Drewjitsu posted:Mentioned before, but every time one of these comes up in Canada (more or less), thanks to Associate Chief Justice Rooke of the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench, they get dealt with quickly: I am not a lawyer, and this was really funny to me. I can't imagine how funny it must be to someone who understands the intricacies.
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Jul 9, 2015 12:34
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Kanine posted:http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/07/08/420913118/does-it-matter-that-95-of-elected-prosecutors-are-white I think elected prosecutors in general are problematic. However, at least here (our prosecutors are appointed. Run of the mill are unionized and pretty much lifetime appointments. Heads of districts are subject to review every I believe 8 years) there are not many minority prosecutors because most applicants are white. When a minority applicant does show up they are almost always hired and put in high caseload offices because the division wants them visible.
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Jul 9, 2015 15:42
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dogcrash truther posted:I am not a lawyer, and this was really funny to me. I can't imagine how funny it must be to someone who understands the intricacies. To me they sound like someone who walked into McDonalds and goes, "I am a first place, and undeliverable orderer of McNuggets. I hereby command under Right and Key the undelivery by way of presentation of 10 INDIVIDUAL PIECES OF Chicken Nugget, nee' McNugget." "That will be $5." "As the Undeliverable Orderer of McNuggets you have no right to command payment of tender cash legal or otherwise from me." "Then you can't have the McNuggets." "INJUSTICE." *posts youtube video about the neat trick of getting them to present you with 10 chicken nuggets, and how they couldn't force you to pay for them because of Undeliverable Orderer Clause from first draft of McDonald's Secret Sauce Recipe [skip the part where you didn't get the nuggets]* I don't do any criminal, but these people fascinate me. At the core of all of them, regardless of what particularly insane theories they have, is a desire to wrest power and control back from what they believe to be an impenetrable and thus inherently unjust system. Its just like people who feel disenfranchised by society, so they join some weird cult to take back a sense of control and belonging for their own lives. I would also bet that in the venn diagram, (People who consider themselves Sovereign Citizens) fits almost entirely inside (People who fell for pyramid scams in the 90's). Its poor, uneducated, delusional, and ultimately lazy people who are looking for a shortcut out of the consequences of their own mistakes. Its their delusion that fascinates me.
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Jul 9, 2015 15:47
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A judge I know has a great way of handling sov cits. "Well, sir, since you don't recognize the authority of this court, my clerk can't administer an oath. And since my clerk can't administer the oath, you can't swear to appear. The prisoner shall be held without bond."
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Jul 9, 2015 15:51
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ActusRhesus posted:A judge I know has a great way of handling sov cits. My friend's father is a judge who takes this exact approach only he states that he's ordering them to drydock.
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Jul 9, 2015 20:33
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What I don't get is who the "gurus" are. They seem like fraudulent hucksters, but without fail it seems like whenever they get in trouble (generally for not paying taxes on the sales of their hucksterism) they use their own nonsense techniques. Shouldn't a true fraud be hiring a real lawyer for themselves? I wouldn't expect a snakeoil salesman to actually take snake oil to cure his own headache. I guess getting a real lawyer would put an end to your fraudulent ways, but so would being in jail.
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Jul 9, 2015 23:18
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junidog posted:What I don't get is who the "gurus" are. They seem like fraudulent hucksters, but without fail it seems like whenever they get in trouble (generally for not paying taxes on the sales of their hucksterism) they use their own nonsense techniques. Shouldn't a true fraud be hiring a real lawyer for themselves? I wouldn't expect a snakeoil salesman to actually take snake oil to cure his own headache. I guess getting a real lawyer would put an end to your fraudulent ways, but so would being in jail. Go look for an actual public record of all their legal successes.
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Jul 10, 2015 04:30
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junidog posted:What I don't get is who the "gurus" are. They seem like fraudulent hucksters, but without fail it seems like whenever they get in trouble (generally for not paying taxes on the sales of their hucksterism) they use their own nonsense techniques. Shouldn't a true fraud be hiring a real lawyer for themselves? I wouldn't expect a snakeoil salesman to actually take snake oil to cure his own headache. I guess getting a real lawyer would put an end to your fraudulent ways, but so would being in jail. An uninformed opinion on my part, but here's my guess: the bullshit artists actually have some understanding of the law, enough to make their bullshit seem believable, and also enough to themselves avoid the court system entirely. Do you think the "gurus" rant about being a sov cit when they get pulled over for speeding? I don't think so; I think they pay their fines like the rest of us, like reasonable people. These "gurus" don't need to claim their rental apartment is a sovereign embassy to try to get out of eviction, because they have money and probably own property, so these situations don't ever happen to them.
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Jul 10, 2015 05:46
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Individuals who sell or profit from paranoid or conspiracy theorist beliefs tend to at least partially believe in those beliefs- it's a way of rationalizing the moral and cognitive dissonance of manipulating their audience. They will usually have a modified version of the underlying theory that they lets them justify their behavior, tied to their sense of moral identity. As a result, when pressed, they usually "double down" on the behavior, rather than reveal their hypocrisy- to themselves or to their followers.
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Jul 10, 2015 05:55
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Discendo Vox posted:Individuals who sell or profit from paranoid or conspiracy theorist beliefs tend to at least partially believe in those beliefs- it's a way of rationalizing the moral and cognitive dissonance of manipulating their audience. They will usually have a modified version of the underlying theory that they lets them justify their behavior, tied to their sense of moral identity. As a result, when pressed, they usually "double down" on the behavior, rather than reveal their hypocrisy- to themselves or to their followers.
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Jul 10, 2015 06:30
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Reading the canadian sov citizen brief was a laugh even with no understanding of the legal system.
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Jul 10, 2015 16:57
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Yeah, that judge should write a book, it would be a good read.
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Jul 10, 2015 16:59
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ActusRhesus posted:I think elected prosecutors in general are problematic. However, at least here (our prosecutors are appointed. Run of the mill are unionized and pretty much lifetime appointments. Heads of districts are subject to review every I believe 8 years) there are not many minority prosecutors because most applicants are white. When a minority applicant does show up they are almost always hired and put in high caseload offices because the division wants them visible. Without getting too much into D&D territory, I'd be interested in your guys experience with the practical consequences of having elected prosecutors and judges. If this happens in your jurisdiction, do you find that cases play differently when you're coming up on an election year? Are there differences in the length of sentences judges will hand out, or the type of bail/probation restrictions they're willing to give? Or do people just tend to play things safer and overcharge/over sentence in general?
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Jul 13, 2015 17:01
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the shadow toker posted:Without getting too much into D&D territory, I'd be interested in your guys experience with the practical consequences of having elected prosecutors and judges. If this happens in your jurisdiction, do you find that cases play differently when you're coming up on an election year? Are there differences in the length of sentences judges will hand out, or the type of bail/probation restrictions they're willing to give? Or do people just tend to play things safer and overcharge/over sentence in general? On cases we want to deal with any profile both sides will continue cases until after an election would be one example. Offers are always worse in an election year.
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Jul 13, 2015 20:17
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nm posted:On cases we want to deal with any profile both sides will continue cases until after an election would be one example. I'm in an appointed state. We see very little politics in the charging decisions.
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Jul 13, 2015 20:19
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In Illinois at least I think they have a decent balance. Judges are initially elected (through a full primary then general election, which is bad). But then your name is put on a ballot every 6 years for simple retention and that's up or down (and it's hardly ever voted down). I don't think Judges should be elected generally, but if you're going to do it, having a real election only once, and before you have ruled on anything, is probably the best way. On the other hand, Iowa's system is much better, Governor appoints for an initial term and then a simple retention election confirming after a few years. Pook Good Mook fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Jul 13, 2015 |
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Jul 13, 2015 21:12
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bitcoin bastard posted:Yeah, that judge should write a book, it would be a good read. It reminded me of the beginning of "A Frolic of His Own" by William Gaddis, which is, indeed, a good book.
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Jul 13, 2015 21:21
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Elected judges have to pander to get reelected, and sometimes making the right decision on a case is not popular. Elected judges get worse as they have to be seen to be "tough on crime." Appointes judges tend to get better as they get older, as the political party (and more specifically the person or people that the judge owes favours to) that installed them as a judge gets less and less relevant as time passes. John Oliver had a bit on elected judges which was pretty great. It seems great on paper, but becomes bad in practice. That doesn't mean we don't have appointed judges who don't know anything about anything and are generally crazy as a poo poo house rat. Because that happens too.
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Jul 14, 2015 08:23
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Pook Good Mook posted:On the other hand, Iowa's system is much better, Governor appoints for an initial term and then a simple retention election confirming after a few years.
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Jul 14, 2015 20:33
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There's been a few questions about prosecution integrity here and in the corresponding legal system D&D thread, but I haven't seen this one asked: What is the legal burden for turning over evidence (from prosecution to defense) in a criminal trial during discovery? If that's not clear (IANAL), what do prosecutors HAVE to turn over to the defense, and does the defense have to ask for it? I'm thinking of a few cases where evidence was hidden/not turned over recently (particularly that one CA DA's office), and what can be done to prevent that in the future? Edit: I realize this can vary wildly by jurisdiction, so federal or generally applicable rules will be fine. Sorry for being kinda vague. Shooting Blanks fucked around with this message at 08:20 on Jul 20, 2015 |
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Jul 20, 2015 08:14
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Shooting Blanks posted:There's been a few questions about prosecution integrity here and in the corresponding legal system D&D thread, but I haven't seen this one asked: In Canada (a civilized jurisdiction), "all evidence possibly relevant to the case" are required to be disclosed to the defence, thanks to a case called R. v. Stingecombe. There are also subtleties between first party disclosure (disclosure deemed to be in the property and control of the Crown, like police notes, and other people evidence) and third party disclosure (like surveillance tapes of the convince store that got robbed). A failure to disclosure first party material is a charter breach. Usually that means that if the evidence is discovered (usually both sides are taken by surprise), but not disclosed, the trial is adjourned and time is given for the defence to consider the new evidence. If the evidence is actively suppressed/crown knew well before the trial date, greater remedies (like a judicial stay) can come into play. I hear that the USA is a giant cluster gently caress when it comes to this stuff. To be fair, prior to Stingecombe, Canada was too, I guess? Before my time.
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Jul 20, 2015 14:53
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Shooting Blanks posted:There's been a few questions about prosecution integrity here and in the corresponding legal system D&D thread, but I haven't seen this one asked: "Excupatory evidence" must be turned over by the prosecution before trial per Brady without a request. The rest of it is governed by state discovery rules. In reality, in California it ia a complete and utter clusterfuck. Even if your DA is nit unethical, if they are lazy or the agency is lazy/unethical, you may not get your discovery at a meaningful time. And the party respinsible rarely sees any backlash.
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Jul 20, 2015 17:50
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Hopefully this is the right thread for this. Several years ago I was the victim of a crime in Ontario. The perpetrator was charged and plead guilty before the case went to trial in a mental health court. I found this out because he has a no-contact order as part of his probation, which the court informed me of by mail, and I wasn't ever called to testify after I made a statement to the police. I was kind of interested in what happened but searching on CanLii for my name and his and browsing through everything in the relevant timeframe didn't turn anything up. Would the court records for something like this be on the internet/CanLii? If so, where should I look? If not, would I have to visit the courthouse in person to see them? Is it even possible to see them?
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Jul 21, 2015 06:54
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Shooting Blanks posted:There's been a few questions about prosecution integrity here and in the corresponding legal system D&D thread, but I haven't seen this one asked: If we found out a prosecutor withheld evidence he or she would not be a prosecutor any longer. If we found out a cop forgot to log in some random piece of evidence or upload some audio or write their supplement until a trial started, it would be a Tuesday. And I would drag the officer into court to explain to the judge what was going on. Then the judge would continue the trial for however long the defense wanted so they could look at whatever random crap the cop forgot to put into evidence. Up here, and I can imagine many other places, the defense gets everything relevant, whether exculpatory or incuplatory. It's not the prosecutor's job to win a case or hide evidence or game the system for a win. We are after the truth, not some nefarious motive. poo poo my office doesn't have the manpower or the resources to pull the wool over a toddler's eyes, we certainly can't play any weird conspiracy games. Defense wants something totally random that's barely even connected to a case? They can have it. What do I care? If the dude's guilty he's guilty, and if he's not he's not. Fighting over discovery are not fights that we are ever going to win or spend resources on, unless it's some totally wild request. And even if it is a totally wild request we give it to the judge to figure out what's relevant, then the judge picks what gets discovered, not us. Actually, now that I think about it, the only requests that we fight are officer personnel files. Since defense attorneys give defendants all their discovery (and since some defense attorneys are crazy rear end anarchist types in their own right) we don't give out cops' home addresses.
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Jul 21, 2015 08:10
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BigHead posted:If we found out a prosecutor withheld evidence he or she would not be a prosecutor any longer. You live outside the U.S.? Or maybe in a less corrupt part of it than everywhere else? Punishment for prosecutorial misconduct is exceedingly rare (less than 2% of cases) A 9th Circuit appeals judge even wrote a long opinion about the "epidemic" of Brady violations a couple years ago.
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Jul 21, 2015 11:42
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BigHead posted:If we found out a prosecutor withheld evidence he or she would not be a prosecutor any longer. That is consistent with how it is here. We tend to have an open discovery policy, with the one exception being documents that could reveal the identity of a witness prior to a hearing on probable cause, and once the case is teed up for trial, we may ask the court to order the defense counsel not to share certain information with his client if it poses a threat to witness safety (e.g. home address etc.) This is after a fairly high profile case in which a child witness and his mother were shot. We do a high volume of gang related cases in this area. But unless there is genuine concern for witness safety, we don't play hide the ball. the only time I deviated from "whelp, it's in the file so here you go" is in the military there is a weird rule about reciprocal discovery where the governemnt only gets to ask for stuff if the defense filed a discovery request...so I would copy my file minus my personal notes, cull out all the Brady material and deliver it with a letter stating "the government has additional documents prepared for you and will deliver them upon receipt of a discovery request pursuant to whatever the hell the rule was." literally within five minutes of getting the request, the rest would be turned over. PostNouveau posted:You live outside the U.S.? Or maybe in a less corrupt part of it than everywhere else? Or maybe California is the outlier and every prosecutor I know thinks Orange County is appalling? The problem with "prosecutorial misconduct" is when the lay person hears it, they assume "hiding evidence" "suborning perjury" etc but the overwhelming cases of "misconduct" at issue on appeal are things like "said the word victim twice in closing argument" or "didn't turn over a police report that the police never told them was written...but the prosecutor is responsible anyway under the rules." If you want to poo poo on prosecutors, there's a whole thread for that over in DnD. This is the thread for people to ask actual criminal justice practitioners about their actual experiences. Also, Lol that article. "No one knows the exact extent of prosecutor misconduct. That’s because many prosecutorial activities take place behind closed doors, rendering any misconduct difficult to detect." And yet we can write ten pages about how clear the issues is based on quotes from defense attorneys! Brb...gonna go twirl my mustache. ActusRhesus fucked around with this message at 12:43 on Jul 21, 2015 |
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Jul 21, 2015 12:36
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bartlebyshop posted:Hopefully this is the right thread for this. Canlii only has written decisions, and thanks to the mental health diversion program, technically the matter never went to court. Just to explain, the matter was dealt with outside of the traditional criminal justice system. The person was able to access mental health resources, hopefully address their mental health issues, and in exchange, the crown withdrew the charges against that person. At best, if you pulled everything you could on this case at the courthouse, you'd get an information containing the charges, some sort of appearance tracking sheet, which details when the accused showed up in court, and transcripts would be very brief and little to no detail about the case itself. It's sort of the entire point of diversionary programs. Legit Businessman fucked around with this message at 14:34 on Jul 21, 2015 |
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Jul 21, 2015 14:31
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Drewjitsu posted:Canlii only has written decisions, and thanks to the mental health diversion program, technically the matter never went to court. Ok, thanks for the explanation! I don't want to see the stuff to like, harass this person by sending it to their job or something. I was just kind of interested in the whole process of the thing because from my perspective what happened was "show up to the police station right now to do a statement", "you could have to fly 3000 miles at any time if we call you to testify", "oops uh yeah btw here's his probation order". I'm glad the person won't have their life ruined by a criminal record. He seemed in a pretty messed up place at the time this went down. Again, thanks for explaining.
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Jul 21, 2015 20:33
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bartlebyshop posted:Ok, thanks for the explanation! I don't want to see the stuff to like, harass this person by sending it to their job or something. I was just kind of interested in the whole process of the thing because from my perspective what happened was "show up to the police station right now to do a statement", "you could have to fly 3000 miles at any time if we call you to testify", "oops uh yeah btw here's his probation order". Sadly, your experience is pretty common from what I hear. One of the frequent complaints that I hear from Complainants/Family members/etc. involved in the justice system is that the Crown/Police/Victim Services does a really lovely job of explaining the process to them. Granted, Criminal Justice is a 2 party system (The Crown and the Defence), and not a 3 party system (The Crown, The Complainant, and the Defence), but still; it doesn't help when there's a lady crying outside of court because the police or the Crown hasn't explained to her that it's the person who allegedly murdered her son had his first appearance in court, the matter was adjourned to review disclosure and obtain instructions, nothing else happened, it took all of 30 seconds, and that's normal. As a personal aside, I'm glad that your now understand how the matter you were involved in all shook out.
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Jul 21, 2015 21:02
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We have designated victim advocates whose job it is to make sure the victims know what's going on/understand the process while still keeping arm's length from the prosecutors. Do you guys not have that?
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Jul 21, 2015 21:16
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Texas does.
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Jul 21, 2015 21:22
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Yeah we have a whole Victims Rights Act that sets up not only a procedure to keep the victims informed and active in cases, but it set up a whole office of attorneys who represent victims in criminal cases. That leads to some hilarious things, when the Office of Victims Rights attorney pulls some poo poo that the prosecutor doesn't have the balls to do, like appeal sentences that pro-dv judges hand down.
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Jul 21, 2015 21:30
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ActusRhesus posted:We have designated victim advocates whose job it is to make sure the victims know what's going on/understand the process while still keeping arm's length from the prosecutors. Do you guys not have that? We have a Victim Services Division set up to do that. That's run by social workers, not lawyers. They do a lot of stuff like offering counselling or directing people to other social services. But, they will explain the process and keep the victim informed if the victim indicates that they want that. That said, there are limits on what victim services can do. Often victims/complainants aren't interested in speaking with victim services. They'll either explicitly say so or they'll not reply to any attempts to contact them. Or, for whatever other reasons lines of communication never get opened. Obviously a lot of victims of crime are themselves impoverished and live in precarious situations where they can be hard to locate or they move around a lot. Good Crowns or police officers should also be keeping victims informed of the status of the case and should be making an effort to explain what's going on. It's good general practice and it makes life easier down the road. BigHead posted:If we found out a prosecutor withheld evidence he or she would not be a prosecutor any longer. This is roughly the same in my office. I don't get paid more for convictions. To my knowledge, I don't think anyone tracks anything like a conviction rate; it's never been raised with me if they do. And, I assume I would be fired if I withheld evidence. I'd hope so. I've never seen it in my office, but I can't imagine anyone wanting to risk their job or, really, their career and good name just to get a conviction in one case. There's a lot more files where that one came from. Up here in the great white north, as stated, we're bound by Stinchcombe which says that all relevant (for a very broad definition of relevant) evidence in possession of the Crown must be disclosed to defence. The only thing I will hold back in certain cases is the victim's contact info or address if that wouldn't otherwise be known to the accused. And that's just a safety precaution. I'll give it out to the defence lawyer if asked, but it doesn't always need to go to the accused.
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Jul 21, 2015 23:25
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ActusRhesus posted:We have designated victim advocates whose job it is to make sure the victims know what's going on/understand the process while still keeping arm's length from the prosecutors. Do you guys not have that? We do. It is not very good because the people are very busy and no matter how it goes the victims and witnesses end up feeling like empty freezie wrappers at the end of it, just sucked dry and discarded once the lawyers got what they wanted. I did a lot of hand-holding for complainants and helped them manage their expectations, which is a lot of fun when you're also the cop they'll be calling the next time the accused does exactly the same thing.
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Jul 21, 2015 23:53
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The victim people in my last county would no poo poo intimidate witnesses including victims (generally DV and sexual assault who were scared of testifying). But that's fine because they work for the state and "victim's right's." Yay.
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Jul 22, 2015 01:08
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