Nevvy Z posted:

Just because someone has to do a job, doesn't mean I'm not concerned or creeped out by the intent of folks who are way to eager to do gross bad jobs. Someone has to change old man diapers but that doesn't mean I won't judge people who are too eager to be involved in that process. Or who only will do it for the very wealthy.

quote:

He should be put in the position where he cannot find representation and the courts have no choice but to appoint someone even if that doesn't fit into our current schema of public defense.

Nevvy Z posted:

Rowling doesn't, based on her wealth, deserve access to doctors and healthcare beyond what the others in her community have access to.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

What I'm trying to do is parse out the "weinstein is Rich and Bad, so therefore he does not deserve to be able to hire an attorney" argument.

A) If he doesn't deserve an attorney because he's rich, then Rowling doesn't deserve a doctor because she's rich.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

It's just not valid to judge private bar criminal attorneys for taking money from clients because they're filling a need that the government doesn't fill; those accused rich people can't get appointed attorneys. If you want to judge Sullivan, change the law about public defenders first.

Nevvy Z posted:

What I'm hearing is that we can't judge greedy lawyers for their greed because even the rich need lawyers. This seems flatly illogical. I'm not required to fix society before I judge greedy people.

It keeps getting framed as judging them for defending criminals, but it's not. It's judging their greed.

I judge greedy doctors in a way I don't judge those volunteering for DWB.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Yeah, you can judge people for free sure, so long as you aren't judging them for defending criminals. A lot of folks itt and elsewhere *are* making arguments that amount to "defending criminals is bad" and they shouldn't make those arguments.

OTOH if Sullivan's worst crime is fleecing Weinstein out of a shitload of money and then providing him legal services no better than what Weinstein would get from an appionted atty, that doesn't seem like a sin worth all this fuss. Oh no a rich rapist is getting scammed

VitalSigns posted:

If Sullivan is scamming people out of greed then he actually is a bad person, hth!

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Sure but he's like Dexter, he's only preys on other even more horrible people

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Sure but he's like Dexter, he's only preys on other even more horrible people

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

OTOH if Sullivan's worst crime is fleecing Weinstein out of a shitload of money and then providing him legal services no better than what Weinstein would get from an appionted atty, that doesn't seem like a sin worth all this fuss. Oh no a rich rapist is getting scammed

Nevvy Z posted:

Weird assumption.

VitalSigns posted:

Ah ok, so I haven't made my position clear. No problem:

I think that there is a separate special justice system just for the rich where outcomes are pretty much for sale, and everyone involved makes a ton of money off that. I think that everyone who participates in and profits from this system is bad (with allowances for special circumstances, etc, under which I might not judge every single individual as bad). doctors.

Nevvy Z posted:

Weird assumption.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

We went over it a few pages back, its supported by data. Generally public defenders do a better or equal job to private defense attorneys, statistically speaking at least. private defense bar is not any better than the public bar overall.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

You're blaming one individual for participating in capitalism.

VitalSigns posted:

Yeah there's this underlying contradiction here where people want to argue that (1) high-priced legal teams make no difference in trial outcomes, but also (2) somehow the rich can't get a fair trial without these high-priced legal teams that make no difference.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

I think this is an overly simplistic analysis. It's not some conspiracy in dark robes; rich people get a separate justice system because of pervasive things like class bias and racial bias and so forth. Rich defense attorneys are an infinitesimally small part of that systemic bias. You're blaming one individual for participating in capitalism.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

It's not an assumption it's the current law. Rich people don't have access to the public defenders. You can claim they should, but they dont , so

VitalSigns posted:

If that's the case then fine.

But I don't think it is.

VitalSigns posted:

That's ok I am fine with blaming people who are part of the problem for being part of the problem.

I don't think blaming people for participating in capitalism is wrong.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

What else has Sullivan done other than defend rich assholes?

VitalSigns posted:

Said that sexual assault isn't real and women are making it all up. Said that women are too stupid to reach the same heights in their fields as men and that's why gender disparities exist.

t:

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

This might be part of our split. As per my first few posts in the thread, I don't really think blame or judgement are valid concepts. We're all bound and controlled by the systems we live within with far less free will than we believe we have. If you want to change behavior, don't bother with blame, change the overall system..

VitalSigns posted:

That's fine my argument is that disapproval of the powerful is a prerequisite for changing the system that benefits them.

I don't know what change you expect to happen if "gee maybe the people running things right now are...bad?" is a bridge too far. Should I not criticize Donald Trump either?

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Criticize away just avoid the specific criticism "providing legal defense to bad people is bad"

Hot Dog Day #91 posted:

Have y'all discussed the issue that a Harvard law professor is a bad choice for a lawyer?

VitalSigns posted:

Said that sexual assault isn't real and women are making it all up. Said that women are too stupid to reach the same heights in their fields as men and that's why gender disparities exist.

wateroverfire posted:

Can you link some sources about this? That would certainly be juicy reading.

Main Paineframe posted:

Even when you go out of your way to pretend it's all about the Weinstein case, you still couldn't manage to completely hide any mention of the misconduct Sullivan was actually fired for, which should be a clear sign of just how severe his misbehavior was.

What misbehavior? Well, another Harvard faculty member is facing sexual harassment allegations, and Sullivan publicly spoke out in support of him - while condemning #MeToo as a movement dedicated to false rape charges, and claiming that the accusers were coached. Given that Harvard has faced a number of sexual harassment scandals in recent years, having a faculty member shooting off his mouth about claiming that victims are actually liars who are framing professors isn't a good look, especially when he's also leaking details from the confidential investigation.

Given the above, it should be no surprise that the students were uncomfortable with him being in a position of leadership and oversight. His first response was to appoint a "point person" in his residence hall who would hear sexual harassment allegations in his place, but the fact that he felt it necessary to hand off part of his job duties to someone else was just more evidence that he wasn't suitable for that job.

Not to mention, of course, Sullivan's long history of troublemaking as a faculty dean, marked by years of bullying and retaliation against underlings, forcing students into doing personal errands for him, threatening people seen as "disloyal" to him, and once driving his subordinates to the point of engaging in an organized labor action against him. When tutors criticized his stance on sexual harassment, he threatened to give them negative performance reviews and made numerous hostile comments.

The OP of the thread is unfortunately impossible to discuss as anything more than a hypothetical strawman, because it's simply not true. It's plain to see that Sullivan's long history of inadequacy and misconduct as a faculty dean have far more to do with him losing the dean role than anything he's done as an attorney.

VitalSigns posted:

That's fine my argument is that disapproval of the powerful is a prerequisite for changing the system that benefits them.

VitalSigns posted:

I think that there is a separate special justice system just for the rich where outcomes are pretty much for sale, and everyone involved makes a ton of money off that.

blarzgh posted:

https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=772
https://imgur.com/nAbeYSL
https://imgur.com/I0QvWaF

VitalSigns posted:

I think that everyone who participates in and profits from this system is bad (with allowances for special circumstances, etc, under which I might not judge every single individual as bad).

VitalSigns posted:

Sullivan is one of those people, he isn't defending Weinstein because he's a martyr to the cause of justice or because his kids will starve if he doesn't. No one is even trying to argue that he's doing it for any reason other than greed, because he loving obviously isn't

quote:

“It’s completely flawed to suggest that attorneys can’t step into and out of roles and representations and keep them separate,” said the woman [Dean Sullivan represented in her sexual assault case], who went on to become a sex crimes prosecutor. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to have lives.”

Sullivan declined to speak for this story. In an e-mail he circulated to students, obtained by the Globe, he noted that America’s legal system rests on a presumption of innocence and the right to effective representation.

“It is particularly important for this category of unpopular defendant to receive the same process as everyone else – perhaps even more important,” Sullivan wrote. “To the degree we deny unpopular defendants basic due process rights we cease to be the country we imagine ourselves to be.”

...

“The US criminal process teaches us that the system only works if we defend those whom we perceive as guilty, as vigorously as those whom we perceive to be innocent,” Sullivan wrote.

Hot Dog Day #91 posted:

drat sounds like he's actually good. That's reassuring. Glad I didn't read anything but op and blarzgh's posts.

VitalSigns posted:

I may have confused the stuff with a different Harvard dean

E: ok yeah I did, that was a Harvard president who said women are too stupid to hire.

quote:

While Fryer declined to comment on the university’s procedures, his lawyer, Harvard law professor Ronald Sullivan, told me that “this process has been deeply flawed and deeply unfair. … It shows what the current [#MeToo] movement, some blood in the water, and good coaching [of witnesses] can produce.”

Sullivan said that there was “no semblance of due process or the presumption of innocence.” He told me that ODR turned a blind eye to rampant witness coaching, allowed the complainant to avoid turning over all relevant electronic communications, and even to white-out portions of documents that she did turn over.

Also, Sullivan said, in assessing the complainant’s two most serious allegations, ODR gave more credence to many-months-after-the-fact statements by the complainant’s then-roommate (and best friend) – who was not present to hear Fryer’s alleged comments -- than to the contrary recollections of eyewitnesses who supported his denials.

...

Sullivan asserts that Harvard’s handling of Fryer’s case has been racially biased as well as procedurally flawed. Fryer wrote to a friend, and later shared with me, a letter stating: “30 years after watching my father be sentenced to 8 years in prison because of a ‘he say, she say’ type encounter with a white woman in Texas with no physical evidence, I am fighting every day to prove I am innocent of allegations that threaten the work I have devoted my life to.”

Sullivan told me ODR “weighted the credibility of white witnesses far above minority witnesses” -- the main complainant against Fryer is white -- and that “in the absence of real data, the process used racial stereotypes.” As an example, he cited ODR’s disparagement of the credibility of Tanaya Devi, who was present for many of the allegedly harassing comments. Insisting that she saw no harassment, she spoke very highly of Fryer. Devi happens to be a dark-skinned native of India. Although the investigator and ODR praised the credibility of the complainant’s (white) roommate, they tended to dismiss Devi’s eyewitness recollections of what she saw and heard at EdLabs.

“Roland was constantly portrayed as an over-sexualized black man who no one could tell no,” Sullivan added. “Yet, there was not one piece of evidence of someone telling him no and him doing something mean to them. … Angry black man who yells and berates. Even [a hostile witness whom he had fired] said in her interview that Roland’s so-called ‘yelling’ is not about raising his voice but it’s the intensity of his look and how his voice sounds.”

quote:

Says one Fryer supporter at Harvard: “There’s a climate of fear of defending Roland. You can’t be seen to be out of line on this. If you defend someone who’s accused, there’s an attitude that you’re perpetuating the system and we’re coming after you next, because you must be guilty too.”

wateroverfire posted:

So digging into the article MP linked yields the following, apparantly. A professor at Harvard, Ronald Fryer, was under Title IX investigation. This article , which was referenced in the Crimson article MP linked, describes the situation in a little more detail and contains the quotes from Sullivan. Whole article is worth a read but I'll reproduce the quotes here.


So it seems Sullivan was deeply critical of the handling of a Title IX complaint against a colleague of his. MP, is that what you had in mind makes him a bad person?

Nevvy Z posted:

Blarzgh you keep saying a set of statistics that is broad is disproving a narrower premise that they don't apply to.

blarzgh posted: