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blarzgh posted:The narrow premise is that money buys you better representation. I have access only to information that tends to show that isn't true. I have personal exposure to a system and set of facts that tell me that isn't true. Why should I change my mind? Well for one thing it's obviously disproved by the relationship between properly funded PD's or not and the outcomes thereof.
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Jun 14, 2019 16:26
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I guess we are just supposed to believe that there is some minimum level of buyable justice that everyone is getting through the PD system and the rich are paying out their rear end because they don't know any better? This seems absurd.
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Jun 14, 2019 16:40
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Nevvy Z posted:You seem to also be implying that someone who did good things cant have done bad things or shouldn't be judged for those bad things. But they should. First I'll clarify: I'm saying that maybe only reading about the "bad things" impairs VitalSigns' ability to 100% know for certain the specific and singular motivations of Robert Sullivan, i.e. "No one is even trying to argue that he's doing it for any reason other than greed, because he loving obviously isn't" Second, I'll let you in on something: No one is as singular as the internet needs them to be. And no one ever truly knows the mind of another person.
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Jun 14, 2019 16:41
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Nevvy Z posted:I guess we are just supposed to believe that there is some minimum level of buyable justice that everyone is getting through the PD system and the rich are paying out their rear end because they don't know any better? This seems absurd. Well one thing that has come up in this thread repeatedly is that defendents who have the financial means to pay for their own lawyers are not able to utilize the PD system even if they wanted to so that might color peoples' behavior somewhat.
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Jun 14, 2019 16:42
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Uh oh, this post creates a problem for the D&D poster “Heroes and Villains” system of morality.
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Jun 14, 2019 16:48
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Cockmaster posted:Exactly. To say that private defense attorneys ought to reject Weinstein (or anyone else) on the grounds of moral outrage over the alleged crime is to declare him guilty without a trial. No it's not
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Jun 14, 2019 16:49
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blarzgh posted:Great news! That's not actually true! No I read it, I don't think it proves what you say and I told you why. What you posted is proof that the legal defense an average person can afford to buy is on average not better than what a PD can do. That's not very interesting and does not imply that the legal defense the ultrarich and well-connected can obtain isn't better than what the poor get from a PD. After all my claim is not that the legal system caters to average amounts of wealth and power and connections, my claim is that the legal system caters to those with exceptional amounts of wealth and power and connections. Your Jamie Dimons, your Goldman-Sachs execs, your Jeffrey Epsteins are pretty obviously not getting the same treatment the rest of us are, and it's pretty silly to insist otherwise imo. E: Nevvy Z posted:I guess we are just supposed to believe that there is some minimum level of buyable justice that everyone is getting through the PD system and the rich are paying out their rear end because they don't know any better? This seems absurd. Precisely. But even if I were to grant this the logical conclusion is that private criminal defense attorneys are a fraud and should be banned for public safety.
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Jun 14, 2019 16:49
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wateroverfire posted:Well one thing that has come up in this thread repeatedly is that defendents who have the financial means to pay for their own lawyers are not able to utilize the PD system even if they wanted to so that might color peoples' behavior somewhat. This is something that would need to change to correct the issue I am concerned about, I agree.
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Jun 14, 2019 16:49
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Nevvy Z posted:I guess we are just supposed to believe that there is some minimum level of buyable justice that everyone is getting through the PD system and the rich are paying out their rear end because they don't know any better? This seems absurd. Probably the simplest way to explain it is this: - Whatever a defendant decides to spend in money, the prosecution has to respond with in time and manpower. The prosecution will never stop trying to convict them, so they have to continue to add resources to match the resources expended by the defense. There will always be diminishing returns; the jury will probably check out by the 13th expert, but if you've got 13 experts, and the other side only has 3, you've put them at a disadvantage. - Why do the ultra rich buy a 100 foot yacht when a 30 foot yacht will do? If you can afford it, why not?  Representation is not like installing an air conditioner. You cannot predict, no matter how clear the facts are, the outcome. Even doctors will tell you that a certain surgery, done perfectly, only has an X% success rate or whatever. Now imagine if Doctors who were trying to remove an appendix had to try to do it while fighting another Doctor who's been hired by the appendix to keep it from being removed. Also, there are 12 non-doctors in the viewing area deciding which Doctor wins, lol. If I told you that spending another million dollars might raise that success rate by .01%, you and I would have to say, "guess not." But Bill Gates would just be like, "ok, whatevs."
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Jun 14, 2019 16:49
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wateroverfire posted:Well one thing that has come up in this thread repeatedly is that defendents who have the financial means to pay for their own lawyers are not able to utilize the PD system even if they wanted to so that might color peoples' behavior somewhat. And that's why people have said the PD system should be universal, also the fact that there's a parallel track by which the rich can avoid justice is still loving horrific
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Jun 14, 2019 16:50
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blarzgh posted:Probably the simplest way to explain it is this: So what you're saying is having more money to spend on a legal defense gives you a better shot against the government than not having money
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Jun 14, 2019 16:51
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wateroverfire posted:Well one thing that has come up in this thread repeatedly is that defendents who have the financial means to pay for their own lawyers are not able to utilize the PD system even if they wanted to so that might color peoples' behavior somewhat. Yeah ok but they aren't paying what someone one dollar too rich to get a PD pays either, not many people spend a million+ dollars on their defense. It's weird that the other day you argued that without millions of dollars of investigations and billable hours, some evidence would be missed and the trial would not be fair and that's why we need private attorneys, and today you're saying nah actually if we banned private attorneys tomorrow and gave everyone a PD it would make no difference.
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Jun 14, 2019 16:53
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BENGHAZI 2 posted:So what you're saying is having more money to spend on a legal defense gives you a better shot against the government than not having money I'm saying it might, so long as the prosecution doesn't respond with equal, or greater resources. And in its own way, its a form of justice. If some super rich rear end in a top hat spends way too much on their legal defense, then its a net multi-million dollar loss to them on top of whatever their punishment ends up being. And for the headlines where a super rich person "got off" there will also be headlines for the Bernie Madoffs of the world where half of them are locked up and the rest forfeited all their assets. I'm happy to believe that spending millions on a criminal defense gets you significantly better results, if I can get a survey of cases where the defense spent millions and compare the results to similarly charged cases where the defense didn't spend millions. I'm not interested in a position, I'm interested in having my position defined by what can be shown as opposed to be defined by how I feel.
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Jun 14, 2019 17:01
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blarzgh posted:Representation is not like installing an air conditioner. You cannot predict, no matter how clear the facts are, the outcome. Even doctors will tell you that a certain surgery, done perfectly, only has an X% success rate or whatever. Now imagine if Doctors who were trying to remove an appendix had to try to do it while fighting another Doctor who's been hired by the appendix to keep it from being removed. Also, there are 12 non-doctors in the viewing area deciding which Doctor wins, lol. If I told you that spending another million dollars might raise that success rate by .01%, you and I would have to say, "guess not." But Bill Gates would just be like, "ok, whatevs." Oh ok so here's where we differ. Check it out: I think a legal system where you put in more money and get a better success rate: is unjust. If that extra 0.01% chance of success is something we think is good, everyone should get it. If it's too expensive then either we need to be charging fewer people with crimes or if for some reason we'd rather charge the same number of people and accept that we just have to make more mistakes in imprisoning people in order to save money, then the rich should not be exempted from that inbuilt injustice. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 17:25 on Jun 14, 2019 |
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Jun 14, 2019 17:03
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blarzgh posted:I'm saying it might, so long as the prosecution doesn't respond with equal, or greater resources. And in its own way, its a form of justice. If some super rich rear end in a top hat spends way too much on their legal defense, then its a net multi-million dollar loss to them on top of whatever their punishment ends up being. And when they get off on crimes well shucks guess they just literally bought their way out of being punished thems the breaks
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Jun 14, 2019 17:08
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blarzgh posted:Here is the juice, though. You're saying, "I, VitalSigns, poster cum laude and all-knowing, all-seeing eye of Agamemnon KNOW, with absolute certainty, the motivations and innermost thoughts of this complex human being, living thousands of miles away, because I have read several tweets about the client he intends to represent. And further, I thusly adjudicate this person forthwith with my god-like powers of divination of intent, and he is thus rendered and adjudged GUILTY of wanting to make money without also wanting or thinking of anything else." Good for him, but also even ignoble lawyers do pro bono work sometimes (I think they have to?). I think when people do good things it's good and when they do bad things it's bad, and when the same person does good things sometimes and bad things sometimes then I can praise the good things and criticize the bad things. I don't really see what this is supposed to prove. George W Bush arguably saved more lives than any human in history thanks to PEPFAR, does that mean he didn't lie the country into a war that killed half a million people? E: Fred Phelps Sr used the legal system to win a bunch of desegregation cases on behalf of minorities, I guess I owe him an apology for saying that some of the other stuff he's done is bad? VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 17:20 on Jun 14, 2019 |
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Jun 14, 2019 17:11
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Nevvy Z posted:We can claim two things are wrong at once. You cannot argue that someone in the here-and-now is wrong for failing to take what would be the most moral course of action in the idealized system you have come up with in your head, because that's insane. BENGHAZI 2 posted:So what you're saying is having more money to spend on a legal defense gives you a better shot against the government than not having money
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Jun 14, 2019 17:29
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My analysis of whether their behavior is morally wrong is not contingent on the system they are participating in, I think it is morally wrong period and that's why we need to change the system, to counter the moral wrongs it perpetuates.
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Jun 14, 2019 17:49
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BENGHAZI 2 posted:And when they get off on crimes well shucks guess they just literally bought their way out of being punished thems the breaks The responsibility for securing convictions is on the state, though. Placing this responsibility on the private sector and the moral scruples of individual attorneys is a strategy that is guaranteed to both fail and appeal intensely to fifth graders who say things like "I think when someone does a good thing it's good".
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Jun 14, 2019 17:53
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VitalSigns posted:Good for him, but also even ignoble lawyers do pro bono work sometimes (I think they have to?). I think when people do good things it's good and when they do bad things it's bad, and when the same person does good things sometimes and bad things sometimes then I can praise the good things and criticize the bad things. You are alleging that Sullivan's actions are bad because of his motives, not because of the results: 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...
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Jun 14, 2019 17:54
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VitalSigns posted:I don't really see what this is supposed to prove. Its not supposed to prove anything; its just to make you question the concrete certainty you developed after reading that Dean Sullivan is a man motivated solely by "greed." And hopefully make you consider that lots of things, including people's motivations and the interface between social moors and legal protections, are more complex than easy good/bad designations.
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Jun 14, 2019 17:57
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Dead Reckoning posted:You are alleging that Sullivan's actions are bad because of his motives, not because of the results: quote:But that is not something you can know. You are starting from the presumption that the only reason a person would agree to represent Weinstein is avarice, declaring it to be an indisputable truth, and ignoring all other possible explanations. blarzgh posted:Its not supposed to prove anything; its just to make you question the concrete certainty you developed after reading that Dean Sullivan is a man motivated solely by "greed." And hopefully make you consider that lots of things, including people's motivations and the interface between social moors and legal protections, are more complex than easy good/bad designations.
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Jun 14, 2019 18:01
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Dead Reckoning posted:You are alleging that Sullivan's actions are bad because of his motives, not because of the results: No I'm arguing the results of the rich buying justice are bad too. I admit my estimation of his motives are based on heuristics rather than mind-reading because I am a human not a Jedi. Heuristics are all we have, and I think "someone who makes a bunch of money working for rich scumbags is doing it out of greed" is a good one. I am open to evidence that I should revise this estimate, for example if I found out Sullivan was donating his fee to charity I would feel differently about his likely motive.
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Jun 14, 2019 18:06
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VitalSigns posted:No I'm arguing the results of the rich buying justice are bad too. If this is true then not only should he be Weinstein's attorney, he actually deserves every penny. If everyone who defends a factually guilty person is subject to your infantile "heuristic", then the people who defend guilty clients can and should command a higher dollar figure--it is, after all, their reputation on the line. Cool system you've invented for rich rapists to thrive in and absolutely no one else.
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Jun 14, 2019 18:42
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Woozy posted:If this is true then not only should he be Weinstein's attorney, he actually deserves every penny. If everyone who defends a factually guilty person is subject to your infantile "heuristic", then the people who defend guilty clients can and should command a higher dollar figure--it is, after all, their reputation on the line. Cool system you've invented for rich rapists to thrive in and absolutely no one else. lol ok I don't think Weinstein cares very much about his lawyer's reputation in my eyes, I think he cares about not going to prison, and I think the amount he is willing to pay depends on that and not on whether I say his lawyer is an rear end in a top hat. Like what even is this reasoning: "we should never criticize bad people who do bad things, because then they will somehow Jedi mind-trick everyone into giving them more money to compensate for their hurt feelings" lol ok buddy E: clearly politicians should not be criticized for taking donations to favor industry, because then they will just demand bigger donations to make up for my criticism, truly the only road to reform is to never criticize or oppose the rich and powerful in any way
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Jun 14, 2019 18:50
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VitalSigns posted:lol ok The lawyer is one the setting the fee, you dipshit, not Weinstein. And if his fee has to account for the wrath of the mob then he may as well only represent the richest clients he can get. I don't give a gently caress who you criticize, my whole point is that it's worthless. Your condemnation is expedient and self-promotional, and your fantasy is that it matters. That's what I dispute, the delusion that shame can be leveraged for social good in lieu of politics. Your critique of "greedy lawyers" convinces everyone else that they are a necessity. How could they be anything but in a world populated by you and your strawmen?
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Jun 14, 2019 19:04
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So if he thinks we should change the rules, which is politics, then he is fine? Because I think we should change the rules but that shame is fine in the meanwhile. If your argument is that "shaming is less good than changing the rules" I 100% agree.
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Jun 14, 2019 19:10
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Woozy posted:The lawyer is one the setting the fee, you dipshit, not Weinstein. Woozy posted:And if his fee has to account for the wrath of the mob then he may as well only represent the richest clients he can get. Woozy posted:I don't give a gently caress who you criticize, my whole point is that it's worthless. our condemnation is expedient and self-promotional, and your fantasy is that it matters. Ok well if my criticism does nothing and doesn't matter at all then your predictions above are unfounded, and there's no problem with my criticizing scumbags then. E: if your problem is that by criticizing Sullivan on a comedy forum I am somehow prevented from taking part in politics, I disagree I can say "Sullivan is bad" and also do whatever it is you think I should be doing to reform the legal system that somehow doesn't include criticizing it. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Jun 14, 2019 |
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Jun 14, 2019 19:14
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twodot posted:Do you believe it is ever possible to know whether another person is doing a bad thing? Sure, you can know what someone does, but the idea that you can every truly know all their motivations, and in what proportion those motivations are driving their decisions is pretty flawed. Here, watch this: I "know" that you don't really care about Harvey Weinstein, or Robert Sullivan, or objective justice or civil liberties. I "know" that you just hate that rich people have more money than you and it makes you mad at them because it feels bad to you, and you're willing to take any position that justifies you levying what little power you feel like you have, like Internet Shame, over them because that makes you feel a little less powerless relative to your perception of their extreme power imbalance. I "know" that you care more about feeling like you can "do something" about it by "shaming people" because you feel like you can't trust the process to properly convict him. I "know" that you don't think the wrong power in the wrong hands can ever be dangerous, because right now you feel like you want the power to "shame" people into not representing certain criminals and its OK because you and everyone you agree with will only use this power in the "right" cases. See how dumb that is?
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Jun 14, 2019 19:30
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Dead Reckoning posted:You can claim that the legal system is wrong and ought to change to match the idealized system you have come up with in your head. But you need to be prepared to be specific about your proposed system and to deal with criticism of its flaws. I agree with this in general, but I don't think it applies here. The US Constitution already guarantees everyone a right to counsel, even horrible monsters have that right by any sane reading of the sixth amendment. Yes currently there are (unconstitutional) state laws that don't contemplate any reason other than poverty that someone might be unable to obtain counsel, and these have never been tested in federal court because the issue has never come up. But if it did come up, and a New York judge said "sorry Harvey my hands are tied, I can't appoint you a lawyer so if you show up without one again you're on your own", then he could appeal his conviction on sixth amendment grounds and I think a federal judge would agree and order New York to appoint him an attorney and give him a new trial. If you disagree and you think federal courts would rule that if no lawyer will take your money then you don't have a right to one, then that's a good reason to disagree with my position on Sullivan.
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Jun 14, 2019 19:33
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blarzgh posted:Sure, you can know what someone does, but the idea that you can every truly know all their motivations, and in what proportion those motivations are driving their decisions is pretty flawed. blarzgh posted:Ok, this is fantastic. We've broken the issue down to it's root: you care more that this particular person be denied justice because of what he did than you care about what happens to the justice system if you got your way. twodot fucked around with this message at 19:41 on Jun 14, 2019 |
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Jun 14, 2019 19:34
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It's weird how how many posts from people supposedly reading the thread assert that anyone ever said that Weinstein should get no legal counsel when in fact the consistent position has been that his wealth should not entitle him to counsel beyond that the average poor gets.
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Jun 14, 2019 19:46
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blarzgh posted:Sure, you can know what someone does, but the idea that you can every truly know all their motivations, and in what proportion those motivations are driving their decisions is pretty flawed. Do you think it's ever justified to draw conclusions about someone else's likely motivation and then judge them and/or act on those conclusions, even though in principle we ultimately can never really know what's in their heart. Let me know because I think "oh hi, no honey it's not what it looks like I just tripped and fell mouth-first onto a guy's dick...uh again!" is an excuse worth trying and if it doesn't go over well I need a good epistemological agnosticism argument about the futility of scientifically analyzing human motivation. Wait no I mean my friend needs that, yeah.
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Jun 14, 2019 19:47
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Nevvy Z posted:So if he thinks we should change the rules, which is politics, then he is fine? Because I think we should change the rules but that shame is fine in the meanwhile. Shame is what makes it impossible to change the rules. This kind of slacktivist posturing absorbs useful energy, it doesn't motivate it, and if you want people to move it behooves you to give them a direction to move in. You should validate the dedication to principle--even if in the case of Weinstein's attorney it is a lie (it isn't)--because the principle helps more people than it hurts, and actually does disproportionally benefit the poor as a class even when it's helping the rich as individuals. And anyway Vital Signs and the kind of shrill online nitwit he typifies are so personally repellent that they could make nuclear annihilation sound appealing just by being against it. Look at the alternative being proposed: we should recruit public defenders to represent the rich. Wow cool, you mean I get to pay for law school, bill 40 bucks an hour defending scumbags, and I have to answer to the Internet if my client is found not guilty? Do I at least get to carry a gun? This isn't just a bad way to change the status quo, the status quo is actually already better, which explains why this argument runs to the far right and indulges in all the old mythology about the legal profession that used to be the province of Dirty Harry flicks. At least now the intrinsic motivations--the rule of law, defense against the excesses of the state, admiration for the values if not the reality of the criminal justice system--result in some good being done, if just out of some perverse sense of noblesse oblige and even if it does mask something like "greed" (and to state the obvious you'll never, ever be able to accurately judge where the line is drawn). If you're going to have a legal system, you may as well have one where a-moral dedication to the rules and principles of law is the basis for it's prestige. At least that system is capable in theory of convicting Weinstein in a way that might make some kind of impact on popular consciousness. The best possible outcome in this case actually is that Weinstein's sleazy high price lawyers argue cogently and passionately that his victims are all whores who traded blowjobs for fame and they are repudiated by the jury. Anything less than that will be fart in the wind in terms of moving the social needle, including haranguing his defense team over their choice of clients.
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Jun 14, 2019 19:50
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Woozy posted:Shame is what makes it impossible to change the rules. This kind of slacktivist posturing absorbs useful energy, it doesn't motivate it Well slacktivist posturing is what you're doing now, so either (1) you do believe that it does something useful in which case great then I too am doing something useful or (2) you don't believe it does something useful but you do think it's not actively bad or harmful in which case great then I too am not doing something actively bad or harmful so there's no problem. Or (3) you do think it is actively bad and you are doing it because you want actively bad things to be done, in which case if I don't want actively bad things to be done I should probably not be taking your advice on what to do!
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Jun 14, 2019 19:56
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Lol "in theory". So in reality when the rich buy themselves out of trouble I can rest assured that in theory they were convicted so everything is fine
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Jun 14, 2019 20:01
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it's like when someone declares bankruptcy and then proceeds to have money later on in their life, they were technically broke and that's the whole point
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Jun 14, 2019 20:03
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Nevvy Z posted:It's weird how how many posts from people supposedly reading the thread assert that anyone ever said that Weinstein should get no legal counsel when in fact the consistent position has been that his wealth should not entitle him to counsel beyond that the average poor gets. The only consistent thing in this thread has been the whiplash speed at which the posters in it can jump from position to moderately modified position.
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Jun 14, 2019 20:09
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Nevvy Z posted:So if he thinks we should change the rules, which is politics, then he is fine? Because I think we should change the rules but that shame is fine in the meanwhile. My argument is that in this specific instance shaming is counterproductive in the absence of systemic change, because it will discourage and stigmatize the defense bar generally, both private and public, and make positive systemic change more difficult to achieve. You don't increase funding for public defenders by stigmatizing the legal defense of criminals.
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Jun 14, 2019 20:18
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VitalSigns posted:Do you think it's ever justified to draw conclusions about someone else's likely motivation and then judge them and/or act on those conclusions, even though in principle we ultimately can never really know what's in their heart. The thing is people are REALLY, REALLY BAD at doing this and tend to rush to judgements that are ultimately wrong. When something really inflamatory is involved you can basically forget about people making reasoned decisions about anybody's motives. That is why it is so important to have a culture around legal representation that insulates judges, lawyers, jurers, and etc from those judgements as much as possible.
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Jun 14, 2019 20:18
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