Grown-ups talk this one out?
Are you suggesting that this post of yours is “grown-up” talk? Have you addressed so much as a single point I have brought up and shown it to be wrong/misguided? Anything approaching two adults debating?
Nope? Here, I’ll help you out: Hypocrisy
Glad you are a nice-guy attorney.
I am talking about your chosen profession however. Believe it or not they are distinct from each other.
I am not saying lawyers should work for free.
I am saying that our Constitution guarantees us the right to “due process”. If to you that means simply someone to dot the “i’s” and cross the “t’s” then we have a fundamental disagreement. Lawyers sleeping through a trial (as I cited above) does not constitute “due process” in my book. That the legal system thinks it somehow does is why I (among other reasons) criticize it.
I do not think that our constitutional rights are premised on “if you’re rich enough to pay for it then you can access that right, otherwise fuck off”.
YMMV
Sure…why let something like “facts” get in the way of a good rant.
If you are an attorney and this is how you approach your job then you truly must suck at it. If an opposing attorney ever has the temerity to introduce facts into your rants then you are well and truly fucked.
I’d be fine with that except you’ll take your client down the shitter with you and they probably deserve better.
And maybe one day you’ll pull out the difference between having a number to point to, and having an actual argument. The fact that high-end lawyers cost a lot does not prove anything. So do high-end doctors, high-end programmers, and indeed anyone who does something that is really rather difficult indeed. If this was your point, then consider it splendidly made; however, it seemed to me that you were reaching rather further up your butt. It was rather akin to saying, “food is really expensive! Why, this beluga caviar costs thousands of dollars per kilogram!”
I submit that even you should be able to spot the essential flaw in this argument.
The legal system, just like any other human endeavour, is in parts broken horribly, in parts shocking, but also in parts magnificent, and is a huge contributor to our current almost unimaginably comfortable mode of existence. But because you went to a course once and found out how unsustainable capital punishment is (and hey, I agree), we’re all expected to listen attentively as you bloviate on and on and on as if you were the first person to notice that sometimes bad things happen in courts.
If all you want to prove is that shit things happen in the legal profession, fine. But you’ve got a lot more work to do before you can prove it’s even remotely unusual in this regard, or that we should colour our prior opinions of lawyers because of it.
What flaw?
The cite also noted that 90% of people in family court have to represent themselves. Are you suggesting that if they cannot afford OJ’s dream team of lawyers they all simply choose to go it alone?
Or how about prosecutors having access to 97% of to the PD’s 3%? You can nitpick the numbers down somewhat but a substantial disparity remains.
So far the best anyone has come up with rebutting these arguments is that maybe they are not quite as bad as suggested. Nothing approaching that the perceived problem does not exist at all.
Again, you have provided nothing in the way of cites to show the falsity of my cites. You have used some reasoning which may mitigate my points a bit but are a LONG shot from refuting them. It is here where the “essential flaw” in your argument lies.
So if slavery allowed us to have an unimaginably comfortable mode of existence we should be ok with that? We should ignore the price that this existence costs? You are ok that the price for this comfortable existence comes at the cost of innocent people being on death row (just for starters, the rabbit hole goes waaay deeper)? You think it is wrong for me to point out these glaring flaws and suggest that the status quo sucks? That I should embrace and love the profession perpetuating that status quo? That my constitutional rights have a monetary price tag? Justice for the rich, screw the rest?
No you!
Don’t worry, I’ve already written you off as a self-righteous, whiny bitch of a lawyer who is so full of himself that you’re simply incapable of understanding why most people view lawyers in a negative light.
But go ahead and continue your ignorant ranting, your behavior and attitude is a great example of why normal people despise you.
Well, I’ve explained in detail, but the main one is that you’re a pillock.
Uh uh uh - 90% of people do; that encompasses both by choice and necessity. Perhaps family law courts are set up specifically to cater to people representing themselves (I know that this is frequently the case in the UK - I will let you educate yourself on your own jurisdiction). Nearer 100% of people represent themselves in small claims court, I’ll warrant; is that a shocking statistic? Impossible to tell without context. And thus we return to the horrible paucity of your vaunted “facts”, and the necessity of constructing an actual argument rather than just coming up with bald figures. Oh, but deary me, here we go again:
Yeah, if by “nitpicking” you mean "point out that a large amount of that 97% is in fact available to both sides. Piffling points, I’m sure, and yet somehow compelling to those not possessed of your staggering intellect.
I’m just going to let this comparison of modern law with slavery stand. Like good wine, an analogy this profoundly stupid needs to breathe.
Whack-a-mole, your cites are cherry-picking their numbers to add sensation, and your uncritical acceptance of the comparisons they make is a definite flaw in your argument; your misinterpretation of these numbers compounds the error:
“a partner in a law firm charges $261 an hour on average” – So? A partner in a large law firm has reached the top of his profession, and charges top dollar; $260 is so low for this select minority that the smaller partnerships that make up the “below average” must be charging a pittance. Add to this the fact that most clients are served by associates, small firms, and “storefront” lawyers, and the figure you cite becomes simply irrelevant. It’s like citing the average salary of CEOs as an argument that middle managers make too much money.
“The cite also noted that 90% of people in family court have to represent themselves.” – No, it didn’t. It says UP TO 90% in SOME family courts DO represent themselves. It doesn’t say what the average is, doesn’t say what courts have such rates, doesn’t say what kind of cases they hear, and it doesn’t investigate WHY these people are representing themselves. Worst of all, they don’t tell us how they arrived at this “90% of people” number – does it include every person named in a suit? If I get divorced amicably, prepare my own paperwork, and my wife does likewise, are my wife, me, and my two children all going to be counted as part of that 90%? Lots of people don’t need lawyers, or don’t trust them, or think they don’t need one. Lots of family court cases are just rubber-stamping settlements, hearing simple disputes between unrepresented parties, etc.
“A 1999 U.S. Justice Department study of the country’s 100 most populous counties found that 97 percent of their law enforcement budgets went toward police, courts, and prosecutors, with the remaining 3 percent going to public defenders.” – Again, so? Why should the PD’s office be getting more? The vast majority of such funds are not spent on activities which directly oppose the defense. For example, the San Francisco Police Department has a budget around $450 million, more than half of which is spent on patrolling; the Sheriff’s Department, which has NO role in arrests or prosecutions in SF, has a budget around $150 million; and the trial courts collectively have a budget of $32 million. Contrary to what appears to be your perception, these forces are NOT arrayed against the defense – most police funds are spent on patrolling, an activity that has to be carried out whether or not it results in arrests; a full 10% gets spent at the airport; nearly $100 million comes from special funds that are earmarked for specific projects; and both the prosecution and the defense get everything that comes out of the police department – if there weren’t any police, there wouldn’t be any cases. The Sheriff and the courts are neutral in this process. The DA’s office has a budget of $31 million, and the Public Defender has a budget of $23 million; bear in mind that the DA’s office has to handle ALL cases that come their way, whereas the Public Defender’s office only handles clients who qualify for their assistance. Both of these offices have their own investigators and other support staff. I think this demonstrates that the comparable spending is quite fairly distributed. San Francisco is a bit of a special case, as it’s both a city and a county, but the 3% they spend on the PD’s office is in line with the cite. By comparison, Imperial County, California, has a $24 million budget for “Detention and Correction,” which includes $2 million spent by the PD’s office, and $4 million spent by the DA.
More facts than the zero you have provided.
Further, you are hanging your hat on nitpicking some few numbers down that clearly point to real issues in the system. Care to tackle sleeping attorneys or pushing for the death penalty of innocent people?
I had a sneaking suspicion you’d be too dim to understand the point of the analogy.
You said, “The legal system, just like any other human endeavour, is in parts broken horribly, in parts shocking, but also in parts magnificent, and is a huge contributor to our current almost unimaginably comfortable mode of existence.”
I pointed out that slavery could fit that model as well. Clearly that is not an argument to support being ok with the status quo. The horribly broken and shocking parts need addressing. The legal profession in the US has not and is not seriously addressing those issues. Indeed, they made it the way it is.
Whack-A-Mole, considering the different functions and responsibilities of DAs and PDs, what do you think would represent true fairness in terms of budgeting? 50-50?
First off they are at the least indicators of a legitimate problem unless you are implying that Fortune/CNN and the others are outright lying and distorting the facts for some unstated purpose.
But fine…want more? (bolding is theirs)
Or…
See my post just above this one. Lots of detail there and more in the links I provided.
I’d argue PD’s should have case loads on par with prosecutors and get paid the same as prosecutors as well as covering other expenses they incur (same as the prosecutors). If they need to hire more PDs then so be it. The defense should also have access to the same amount of money the prosecutors do to hire experts to testify on their behalf or pay for their own investigation and such.
Essentially parity with the prosecutors (which of course will vary across the country so whatever that means in each locale).
ETA: Note that the ABA wants the same thing which is nice to see.
I do not know what the disparity is. However, note that Taypayer-funded lab work is available to both sides and has cleared many an accused. No doubt there is a disparity. OTOH, there is nothing to stop you from being filthy rich and outspending the Prosecution. So, it’s not a "rights’ issue.
Yes, it is a rights issue that is not obviated by either of your rejoinders here. Lab work is not equally available, as I understand it. PDs do not have access (any at all) to databases with fingerprints and DNA.
You can get a crappy match on fingerprints, say on six or eight points and no opportunity to run the same partial print for hundreds of other lousy matches. Normally you need about 15 points to constitute a match that is conclusive. Come up with 6 points and some nutty judge may admit it, but you can bet they wouldn’t if the PDs got to use the database to come up with all the other crappy matches. There are a whole bunch of interesting arguments on why fingerprint evidence isn’t scientific, but it’s a bit beyond the scope of this thread.
Second, a defendant has a “right” to effective assistance of counsel, see Gideon v. Wrainright where Henry Fonda and Jose Ferrer cleaned the clock of the State of Florida. Counsel must be effective, and counsel that cannot spend time on the case, hire experts and investigators, etc.
Brilliant. Let me give you a typical caseload for a P.D.
#1: Guy robbed convenience store, in daylight, on camera, without mask, and dropped wallet on floor as he left, and was arrested with money in a bag from the convenience store, 5 blocks from the crime scene.
#2: Accused caught driving with a BAC of .41. After being released from hospital, he is booked.
#3-#10: prostitutes caught on tape soliciting.
#11: Teen caught shoplifting. Is on camera, and was detained by store security as soon as he exited the store.
#12-#19: drunken and/or drug related assault.
#20: Actually interesting case where police may have wrong suspect.
The real world is not CSI or NCIS or whatever other acronym show you are watching in between reading tax protest sites and responding to every sentence posted on the dope. Most of these cases get pled, because they are pretty fucking obvious and there is no room for lawyering around. 80% of the job of a P.D. is just to negotiate good plea bargains. And regardless of your inane ideas about how every case features forensic evidence and is a duel of wits between counsel in the courtroom, plea bargains are constitutional, and they are highly efficient.
Of course, on the other hand, the prosecution has the burden of proving every element of the case. They are the ones that have to do lab work and watch tapes and pay for blood spatter experts (although as mentioned by the other people in this thread that aren’t fuckwits, this is part of your 97% and is available to both sides).
So your 50-50 balance of fundage is just stupid. Once again, you have demonstrated your ignorance by focusing on a completely irrelevant issue, based on some combination of your TV fantasies of being on CSI and your sexual longings for Nancy Grace. This is my point, and you are helping prove it: You have no idea what you are talking about and your ability to google public interest groups, bring up incredibly rare celeb cases, and refuse to even understand other people’s posts (while simultaneously quoting them and repeating yourself) are just more evidence that you don’t actually have a clue.
Oh, and I forgot intellectually dishonest (though admittedly, that could just be the dumb).
I’ll agree that is in fact a typical PD case, at least in my understanding. But it isn’t all of the cases. Of course there is always a motion to get more budget from the court. Or at least so I hear. But then there are also all the Texas death penalty cases we hear about the lawyers falling asleep or not preparing at all.
So, slavery was magnificent in your view? An indispensable part of civilised life?
Hmm.
Not to me but I am willing to bet many slave owners saw it that way.
Isn’t that the same case load for the prosecution? Seems to me for any given case before the courts there is a prosecutor and a defense attorney. Whether they plead or go to trial or what you need a person on each side doing their job.
As cited in post #192 there is a distinct disparity here as noted by a study explicitly done looking at this very issue.
Once again the you manage to ignore the very evidence given in lieu of your bullshit rant.
When every sentence is pure drivel it is fun responding to it. Most people know when they are in a hole to stop digging but you keep at it and I enjoy watching you flail about helplessly.
And yeah, plea bargains are constitutional but a good case can be made that they shouldn’t be. There have been numerous things in our history that were constitutional for awhile but probably never should have been. There are very real issues surrounding the plea bargain system and once again your hand waving it all away merely displays your ignorance or simple indifference.
Oddly the defense attorneys do not see this as parity. Nor do my cites above consider this parity.
This is classic. How’s this for intellectually dishonest? Completely avoid two cites in post #192 discussing this, one of which is a study explicitly done on this issue and finds that problem or the other piece which itself is extensively cited.
Better still, missed the part that the American Bar Association supports this? Here, I’ll help you (how you can be an attorney and lack even the most basic ability to do the simplest research is beyond me):