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Ogmius815 posted:Or maybe they aren’t either good or bad because lawyers are not responsible for what their clients do. Ah the IBM defense: "we only facilitated the final solution" Lawyers yes are not responsible for what their clients do. But, like all humans with moral agency, lawyers are responsible for their own actions, and an unethical act is still unethical even if someone else is paying you to do it.
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Jun 11, 2019 19:18
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Some divorce lawyers may be good and some bad. One way to determine that is to see if they consistently represent lovely assholes on the basis that that gets them more money.
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Jun 11, 2019 19:23
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VitalSigns posted:Yes they are entitled to a legal presumption of innocence, but I don't see how not getting an expensive attorney denies them that. Unless your argument is that being unable to afford an attorney equals a presumption of guilt. VitalSigns posted:There's a fundamental contradiction in your argument, you can't both argue that private representation and expert advice is a basic legal right without which a fair trial is impossible, and then also be okay with denying that right based on wealth. That makes no sense.
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Jun 11, 2019 19:25
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Dead Reckoning posted:People have a right to choose their legal representation. Maybe they shouldn't. I mean if you wanna get more complicated conflating "the ability to choose" with "the ability to buy" is loving dumb for a large number of reasons but not sure if you're ready for that notion yet. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 19:51 on Jun 11, 2019 |
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Jun 11, 2019 19:39
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Dead Reckoning posted:Do you think we should abolish and collectivize grocery stores because the wealthy can walk in and use their cash money to buy things not on the WIC approved list? But even if I grant your premise that we shouldn't collectivize grocery stores for some reason, this analogy doesn't work because by definition lobster or caviar or whatever it is the rich are buying aren't a basic need. If they are, they should be provided to the poor. If not, then it's no problem and it's no problem if the rich can't get them either for some reason. I don't think they should be denied out of spite but I don't care if rich people not having lobster is a consequence of some other good policy. If basic needs aren't on the WIC approved list that's an argument for expanding the list, not for saying "ok having basic needs met is only for the rich then". Is your argument that hiring a private lawyer is a basic requirement for justice to be done, or not? Dead Reckoning posted:People have a right to choose their legal representation. The purpose of the public defender system is to ensure that everyone has access to legal representation at criminal trials even if they cannot afford it. Then you don't think everyone has the right to choose their legal representation, because you explicitly condition that right on having money, while everyone without money has their representation chosen for them by the government. Also, do you think that lawyers have the right to turn down clients ( for monetary or non-monetary reasons?) Clearly it can't be both, if people have a right to choose their legal representation then lawyers can't have a right to refuse, if lawyers have a right to refuse then people can't have a right to choose their legal representation. I think that everything that is essential to a fair trial be provided to the defendant for the government for free, just as it's provided to the prosecutor for free by the government. If your position is that without a legal team consisting of at least one graduate of a T10 law school plus two subject matter experts a trial isn't fair (or whatever minimum of legal assistance you define), then that should be provided to everyone for free. That conclusion is inescapable because anything other than a fair trial is unjust. The only way to conclude that such things shouldn't be available to those who can't pay is to argue that it makes no difference to the outcome of the case, so we can still have a just system while allowing such unnecessary luxuries to the rich. But then it obviously isn't a right, and it makes no difference whether a rich dude is able to have it or not, just as it makes no difference whether we allow a rich guy to pay extra to have a Swedish massage during the trial or the right to choose his walking-into-court theme song. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 19:58 on Jun 11, 2019 |
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Jun 11, 2019 19:49
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Can we have a thread rule that we all acknowledge that money grants unequal access to a bunch of things but rehashing that argument is kind of boring so we just accept it as read into the record and focus on other questions? Everyone has a right to a defense lawyer in criminal court. If someone can't afford a defense lawyer, one is appointed for them. It's impractical to suggest that every defendant should have an unlimited government-funded budget to use in their defense - why wouldn't every defendant spend as much as possible? - and it's super problematic to suggest that because not everyone can afford the best lawyers (or any lawyers at all) that no one should be able to pay for their own laywer. For a lot of things the PD's office is probably better than hiring a rando private attorney because the PD will have much more experience, fwiw. I think I remember a thread where actual attorneys were talking about that, from a few years back.
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Jun 11, 2019 20:03
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wateroverfire posted:Can we have a thread rule that we all acknowledge that money grants unequal access to a bunch of things but rehashing that argument is kind of boring so we just accept it as read into the record and focus on other questions? Ok. wateroverfire posted:it's super problematic to suggest that because not everyone can afford the best lawyers (or any lawyers at all) that no one should be able to pay for their own laywer. You first. Guys I know money makes things very unequal but it's super problematic to suggest that we can't have let people bribe the judge just because not everyone can afford it.
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Jun 11, 2019 20:08
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Also I'm not sure it makes sense to argue that a lawyer should be free to turn down a client who wants to hire them but a law firm shouldn't be free to turn down a lawyer who wants to work for them. Why are they being held to different standards, why is it ok for a lawyer to refuse a client legal representation, but not ok for a law firm to indirectly do the same thing by refusing to hire that lawyer. That makes no sense to me. You could argue that if a lawyer turns you down you can go find another lawyer, but by the same argument if a law firm refuses to let their lawyers represent you you can go to another firm or the lawyer in question can go work for another firm. You could argue that the firm should be forced to comply to prevent the theoretical situation of every firm in the country firing a lawyer for representing you, but by the same argument any lawyer should be forced to comply to prevent the theoretical situation of every private lawyer in the country turning you down.
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Jun 11, 2019 20:09
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wateroverfire posted:It's impractical to suggest that every defendant should have an unlimited government-funded budget to use in their defense - why wouldn't every defendant spend as much as possible? - and it's super problematic to suggest that because not everyone can afford the best lawyers (or any lawyers at all) that no one should be able to pay for their own laywer. If the argument is that justice is impractical then it really calls into question whether we should be putting anyone in jail at all. E: I don't think that you make an unjust system "more just" by making it unfair. Like, I think imprisoning people for possession of marijuana is unjust, but I don't think that it would be more just if a hefty bribe to the judge got your case dismissed, even though the result of this added unfairness is fewer people unjustly imprisoned, would you not agree that overall the system has become less just? And I don't think it makes it better if we relieve of the judge of committing a crime by just explicitly writing into law that our unjust penalties don't apply if you meet a net worth threshold. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 20:17 on Jun 11, 2019 |
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Jun 11, 2019 20:11
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VitalSigns posted:If the argument is that justice is impractical then it really calls into question whether we should be putting anyone in jail at all. Probably we should be putting in jail some of the people we put in jail, but not others. Maybe not most of them. edit: For many things it would probably be better to just require the guilty party to make restitution and let society get on with itself. wateroverfire fucked around with this message at 20:18 on Jun 11, 2019 |
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Jun 11, 2019 20:13
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wateroverfire posted:Probably we should be putting in jail some of the people we put in jail, but not others. Maybe not most of them. That's a good point, one way to make the "impractical" costs of proper legal representation more manageable would be a system that doesn't seek to criminalize poverty and rely on mass incarceration for profit and slave labor in the first place! If you're arresting fewer people you can afford to pay for a proper defense.
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Jun 11, 2019 20:19
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VitalSigns posted:Lawyers yes are not responsible for what their clients do. But, like all humans with moral agency, lawyers are responsible for their own actions, and an unethical act is still unethical even if someone else is paying you to do it.
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Jun 11, 2019 20:22
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Ogmius815 posted:Or maybe they aren’t either good or bad because lawyers are not responsible for what their clients do. Dead Reckoning posted:If a rapist gets the charges gains him dismissed, because his lawyer gets the overwhelming physical evidence against him thrown out, because the police gathered the evidence in the course of an illegal, warrantless search, is this a Good thing, or a Bad thing? Does it matter whether the lawyer was a PD, Pro Bono, or paid?
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Jun 11, 2019 20:30
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VitalSigns posted:If the argument is that justice is impractical then it really calls into question whether we should be putting anyone in jail at all. I agree but I don't think allowing people to hire their own laywers if they can afford them rises to the threshold of any of that, though. If PDs are poo poo then we should fix that (I don't think PDs are poo poo, by and large. In at least some juristictions they're paid on the same scale as prosecuters - I want to say California is an example?)
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Jun 11, 2019 20:30
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twodot posted:If the lawyer decided to defended the rapist because they think rapists are rad, that would be bad, but within your hypothetical we're just speculating as to the lawyer's motivations. If the lawyer decided to defend a rapist because even rapists are entitled to a defense, would that be good?
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Jun 11, 2019 20:32
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Dead Reckoning posted:If a rapist gets the charges gains him dismissed, because his lawyer gets the overwhelming physical evidence against him thrown out, because the police gathered the evidence in the course of an illegal, warrantless search, is this a Good thing, or a Bad thing? Dead Reckoning posted:Does it matter whether the lawyer was a PD, Pro Bono, or paid? Yes. Protecting the rights of the accused is good, protecting the rights of only certain accused if they have money is morally wrong. I don't think that adding unfairness to an unjust system makes it more just, I think it makes it more unjust. If poor people are having their rights violated without recourse because the PD system isn't doing its job (which is why the rich rapist had to hire a private lawyer in the first place) then just as above, we should be willing to commit a small injustice in order to prevent greater injustices. We should subject the rich to the same unjust system the poor are subject to, in order to incentivize the rich to change the system. Just as we let the rapist go in order to incentivize the police to respect the constitution.
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Jun 11, 2019 20:36
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wateroverfire posted:I agree but I don't think allowing people to hire their own laywers if they can afford them rises to the threshold of any of that, though. If PDs are poo poo then we should fix that (I don't think PDs are poo poo, by and large. In at least some juristictions they're paid on the same scale as prosecuters - I want to say California is an example?) If the PDs are fine then it's not problematic that rich and poor alike have to rely on them. That is obvious. It's only if the PDs are not fine that it's even a problem.
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Jun 11, 2019 20:38
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wateroverfire posted:If the lawyer decided to defend a rapist because even rapists are entitled to a defense, would that be good?
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Jun 11, 2019 20:39
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wateroverfire posted:If the lawyer decided to defend a rapist because even rapists are entitled to a defense, would that be good? If they charge so much that only the richest rapists can afford their defense then I am comfortable saying that it isn't their motive. "I will defend any rapist because even rapists deserve a defense" is different from "even rapists deserve a defense unless they aren't millionaires"
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Jun 11, 2019 20:41
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wateroverfire posted:Can we have a thread rule that we all acknowledge that money grants unequal access to a bunch of things but rehashing that argument is kind of boring so we just accept it as read into the record and focus on other questions? Why shouldn't all criminal defense attorneys be funded by the government? All prosecutors are, after all, and I've never heard of them running into budget problems. If it's impractical, why don't you lay out for us how it's totally practical to pay for the prosecution side of every case but not the defense side of every case, instead of just asserting that it's "problematic" to disagree? And claiming that massively overloaded public defender caseloads are actually good because it means PDs have a lot of experience is one hell of a spin.
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Jun 11, 2019 20:45
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VitalSigns posted:If they charge so much that only the richest rapists can afford their defense then I am comfortable saying that it isn't their motive. twodot posted:Such a lawyer would be a public defender, so, as I have very consistently been saying, public defenders are good and we should keep them around. "Every client deserves a defense and I like getting paid" seems a consistent set of motivations. It may be mercenary but it's not unethical.
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Jun 11, 2019 20:46
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Main Paineframe posted:If it's impractical, why don't you lay out for us how it's totally practical to pay for the prosecution side of every case but not the defense side of every case, Well that's easy, railroading a hapless poor is cheap, securing a conviction against a well-prepared defense attorney is not as cheap. Underfunding criminal defense is a great cost-saver on the prosecution side!
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Jun 11, 2019 20:49
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wateroverfire posted:"Every client deserves a defense and I like getting paid" seems a consistent set of motivations. It's literally a contradiction. E: do you think there's a moral difference between selling drugs near cost in order to be able to keep manufacturing them, and patent vultures who buy up medicines and jack up the price 40,000x times? Like a difference that doesn't reduce down to "I like getting paid" VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 20:53 on Jun 11, 2019 |
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Jun 11, 2019 20:50
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wateroverfire posted:"Every client deserves a defense and I like getting paid" seems a consistent set of motivations. It may be mercenary but it's not unethical. "Greed is not unethical" is a hot loving take
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Jun 11, 2019 20:52
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VitalSigns posted:It's literally a contradiction.
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Jun 11, 2019 20:53
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Nevvy Z posted:Seems weird to undermine the premise of the thread like this. Should lawyers NOT want to get paid? Should doctors? Should everyone?
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Jun 11, 2019 20:54
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wateroverfire posted:"Every client deserves a defense and I like getting paid" seems a consistent set of motivations. It may be mercenary but it's not unethical. edit: wateroverfire posted:Should lawyers NOT want to get paid? Should doctors? Should everyone?
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Jun 11, 2019 20:54
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VitalSigns posted:It's literally a contradiction. I think that between those two extremes there is a reasonable stance, at least until we hit a post-scarcity state.
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Jun 11, 2019 20:56
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twodot posted:If you refuse to defend a client that can't pay you, then you plainly don't believe everyone deserves your defense. You are picking and choosing who gets your defense, and your choices can, should, and will reflect on you personally. Is it immoral to choose the defendant who can pay over the defendant who cannot if they are equally deserving of a defense?
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Jun 11, 2019 20:57
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twodot posted:If you refuse to defend a client that can't pay you, then you plainly don't believe everyone deserves your defense. You are picking and choosing who gets your defense, and your choices can, should, and will reflect on you personally. Ummm...yes? As far as I understand it, PDs get paid. FWIW I think the Bar requires all lawyers to do a certain number of pro-bono hours, as well, so in theory every lawyer is taking some cases every year that don't pay.
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Jun 11, 2019 20:58
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Rent-A-Cop posted:Is it immoral to choose the defendant who can pay over the defendant who cannot if they are equally deserving of a defense?
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Jun 11, 2019 20:59
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In any field there are always so many more clients who can't pay than clients who can. =(
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Jun 11, 2019 21:00
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We should judge rich lawyers the way we judge all other rich people. Scum. "But you see this is all ok if we just set aside the fact that capitalism is inherently unethical"
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Jun 11, 2019 21:02
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wateroverfire posted:I think that between those two extremes there is a reasonable stance, at least until we hit a post-scarcity state. Right I agree, that's why I can look at circumstances and context and say "this guy getting rich off defending rich scumbags is a scumbag" while still making the allowance that some other guy can be a good person balancing his ideals with his need to have food and shelter and a decent life. I don't have to treat those two people exactly the same!
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Jun 11, 2019 21:03
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wateroverfire posted:In any field there are always so many more clients who can't pay than clients who can. =(
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Jun 11, 2019 21:04
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twodot posted:Oh cool, I've been deemed the arbiter of morality. Yes. Next?
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Jun 11, 2019 21:05
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VitalSigns posted:Ah the IBM defense: "we only facilitated the final solution" In other words, you think that only people who behave the way you want are entitled to legal representation. Yes I know you’ll dodge with “everyone deserves legal representation, but that doesn’t mean that lawyers who represent lovely people shouldn’t face social consequences.” So I’ll revise: you think that lawyers should have to face social opprobrium for representing people who don’t behave the way you want. But because not everyone in the country agrees with your standards of behavior, that’s going to make it harder for some people you probably do like to get fair legal representation. Let me put it this way: were the townspeople right to turn against Atticus Finch because he defended a black person accused of rape? Don’t respond “but that guy wasn’t guilty”, that hadn’t been established to the community’s satisfaction. Ogmius815 fucked around with this message at 21:08 on Jun 11, 2019 |
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Jun 11, 2019 21:06
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Rent-A-Cop posted:Why? edit: Ogmius815 posted:But because not everyone in the country agrees with your standards of behavior, that’s going to make it harder for some people you probably do like to get fair legal representation. twodot fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Jun 11, 2019 |
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Jun 11, 2019 21:07
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Rent-A-Cop posted:Is it immoral to choose the defendant who can pay over the defendant who cannot if they are equally deserving of a defense? Well I would argue that it's not immoral to refuse to give free insulin to everyone who cannot pay because ultimately the costs of manufacturing have to be paid for and the manufacturer has to eat besides, and yet it is immoral to demand $10,000 a dose for that insulin because the manufacturer can get really rich by restricting medicine to the superrich. There is a pretty big moral difference between an individual who is incapable of single-handedly solving a systemic problem (which should be done by a public service) and an individual who exacerbates a systemic problem out of greed.
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Jun 11, 2019 21:09
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"Everyone is equal as long as I get paid"
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Jun 11, 2019 21:11
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