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In Jail Without a Lawyer: How a Texas Town Fails Poor Defendants

nytimes.com

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Re: In Jail Without a Lawyer: How a Texas Town Fails Poor Defendants

#251

Post by sixothree »

AngryData wrote: post #38

Anyone who has ever dealt with the US justice system as just some regular bloke knows it is broken. 90% of it is about extorting the population for funding for the courts and cops. If you can't afford a lawyer, they will provide you with a joke. And if you can afford a lawyer, now its just a question if you are willing to spend more on your lawyer than the state is hoping to extort from you. If you are, you will get…

One of the most repulsive and eye-opening experiences I have had is sitting in my local traffic court for 4 hours. It became clear to me that court was filled with people trying to go to work or live their lives but end up being saddled with thousands of dollars in fines.

The worst part of the experience for me was agreeing to pay my $150 fine. This was the amount stated by the judge. But of course when you actually go to pay, the cost if $400 because of the fees. I'd rather just pay a lawyer next time.

Re: In Jail Without a Lawyer: How a Texas Town Fails Poor Defendants

#252

Post by marcus_holmes »

ty6853 wrote: post #239
marcus_holmes wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The self-defence thing absolutely fascinates me. What are you guys so scared of? It's a literal fact that a gun is much more likely to be used to kill its owner (or a member of the owner's own family) than any intruder or external threat [0] Why is this such a thing in the USA? Why do you guys hold gun ownership up as this amazing freedom when owing a gun is literally, provably, way more of a threat to you and your f…

A gun is effective for suicide, yeah. We don't have suicide clinics in the states like Europe has, at least that I'm aware of. So people buy guns then off themselves. You have the causation backwards.

Yes, I agree, there's definitely that. I know I would not be alive now if I had easy access to a gun.

But the parent is talking about the USA having more self-defence freedoms, and gun ownership is definitely part of that. It's not about suicide, it's that weird "you gotta protect your family" that non-Americans find a bit worrying - what are you so scared of? I've lived in a few countries and nowhere I've lived has this level of fear. I've never felt that I would be safer if I owned a gun. I have no idea who I'd use it against (except myself, obviously).

Re: In Jail Without a Lawyer: How a Texas Town Fails Poor Defendants

#253

Post by lupusreal »

mixologist wrote: post #208
robertlagrant wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see the point in this bad faith stuff. Clearly the US has provided a massive defence umbrella not limited to wars the US started. EU countries are now arming up and spending increased GDP on defence to accommodate the US spending less on their defence. The US has spent a fortune that those countries didn't have to previously spend, and could instead spend on social things. I think the US was fine with this, b…

What bad faith? US has been destroying Middle East for decades. Where do you thing that migrants from those regions run to? Wars in Middle East are not something that EU needs or wants. We just went with it because of all the "we are allies and we respect each other" lies that were used by US administrations to swindle EU and get what they want. Or do you propose that US pays for the costs of immigration problems aro…

We all know where the middle east strife comes from. America has supported it, but not America alone. Is Germany going to stop providing financial and military aid and hardware to Israel?

Re: In Jail Without a Lawyer: How a Texas Town Fails Poor Defendants

#254

Post by skyyler »

sph wrote: post #155
AStonesThrow wrote: post #129

I feel that nolo contendre [No Contest] is underrated, and Imma keep leaning on its elegant simplicity.

Expressing the wish to adopt a Latin idiom using Gen-Z slang and AAVE. A linguist could write a PhD thesis on your comment alone.

>A linguist could write a PhD thesis on your comment alone

I have a feeling you're just tickled by someone using language you consider low-brow to express a thought that you consider high-brow. It doesn't seem that deep to me, but maybe I'm missing the fun. Can you help me understand?

Re: In Jail Without a Lawyer: How a Texas Town Fails Poor Defendants

#255

Post by pseudocomposer »

lurk2 wrote: post #170
SauciestGNU wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that, but it explains the disdain for Europe in the current American government. European society proves that Americans could have true freedom and quality of life if it weren't for corporations and oligarchs effectively owning our government. Fascists hate a counterexample.

> European society proves that Americans could have true freedom and quality of life if it weren't for corporations and oligarchs effectively owning our government. Europeans have far more restrictions on their rights of speech, self-defence, and freedom of conscience than the Americans. They are also substantially poorer than Americans, and those numbers get worse when you account for America’s average being skewed…

The thing about being “poor” in Europe is, you can be “poor” your entire life by American standards of income/assets, but still never take on medical debt, travel more than a month out of the year, have a couple kids and educate them in good schools, and retire.

Most Americans cannot.

Re: In Jail Without a Lawyer: How a Texas Town Fails Poor Defendants

#256

Post by A_D_E_P_T »

chollida1 wrote: post #236
A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree 100%. I've written about this here before, but I've been involved in two civil lawsuits in my life. One was in the USA, the other was in mainland China. I should stress that I am an American, and I wasn't even in China when the lawsuit over there was moving along. The Chinese process was very fast -- it went before a judge who reached a verdict in something like ten months -- and it was extremely inexpensive.…

> . Two years on, and we were just at the beginning of "discovery" -- an amazingly invasive process that appears to be unique to the US legal system. This is common in almost all legal systems. How else would the defendant get to examine the evidence against them and how else would you provide evidence if there was no discovery process? Its hard to imagine there would be a legal system without it.

In China I recall that "the burden of proof was on the parties" and both sides were asked to submit all relevant evidence to the court. Then there were a couple of meetings where my lawyer met with the other side's lawyer to review the evidence.

If you're the plaintiff and you have evidence that supports your version of events, you give it all to the court. If you're the defendant and you have exculpatory evidence, or anything that shows that the case is frivolous, you give it all to the court. The judge can then ask for more evidence, or utilize what's provided.

My legal team didn't need to sift through ten years of emails in order to find a few needles hidden in the haystack. The process wasn't adversarial. The parties can't use "discovery" to get trade secrets or proprietary information. And the costs were near enough to zero.

I wouldn't even say that it's a "better" system. I'd characterize US-style discovery as simply broken, and the Chinese system as something that works in a common sense way.

Re: In Jail Without a Lawyer: How a Texas Town Fails Poor Defendants

#257

Post by lurk2 »

neffy wrote: post #186
lurk2 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> European society proves that Americans could have true freedom and quality of life if it weren't for corporations and oligarchs effectively owning our government. Europeans have far more restrictions on their rights of speech, self-defence, and freedom of conscience than the Americans. They are also substantially poorer than Americans, and those numbers get worse when you account for America’s average being skewed…

We're really not. Just the health care issues, which can be directly seen in the life expectancy figures, make us materially richer, never mind anything else. And I much prefer not needing to exercise my rights to self-defence in the first place, than to have to worry about carrying a gun around all the time, and whether or not a child might get accidentally get access to it. See also gun shooting figures.

> We're really not. Just the health care issues, which can be directly seen in the life expectancy figures, make us materially richer, never mind anything else.

They don’t. Americans earn something like 1/3rd more than the average European. They have substantially larger houses and own more cars.

> And I much prefer not needing to exercise my rights to self-defence in the first place

The vast majority of people will never need to use a gun whether they are in the US or Europe. The position you’re taking is one that it is convenient for you to take because you are not currently the victim a violent crime. This is akin to someone talking about all of the money they are saving by driving without insurance.

Re: In Jail Without a Lawyer: How a Texas Town Fails Poor Defendants

#258

Post by AnimalMuppet »

raincole wrote: post #177
lawn wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a similar phenomena with how Russians view Ukraine. "Who allowed them to live so well?".

Ukraine is and was literally the poorest european country. Even before this war.

So? The issue is, are they living better than (most) Russians - the Russians who see them as "one people"? That's the issue in lawn's post.

Re: In Jail Without a Lawyer: How a Texas Town Fails Poor Defendants

#260

Post by lurk2 »

pseudocomposer wrote: post #255
lurk2 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> European society proves that Americans could have true freedom and quality of life if it weren't for corporations and oligarchs effectively owning our government. Europeans have far more restrictions on their rights of speech, self-defence, and freedom of conscience than the Americans. They are also substantially poorer than Americans, and those numbers get worse when you account for America’s average being skewed…

The thing about being “poor” in Europe is, you can be “poor” your entire life by American standards of income/assets, but still never take on medical debt, travel more than a month out of the year, have a couple kids and educate them in good schools, and retire. Most Americans cannot.

> Most Americans cannot.

You have no idea what you’re talking about and there is no statistical basis to the claims you are making. The only two metrics Europeans win out on is life expectancy (by around 4 years) and (narrowly) on home ownership rate (around 5 percentage points higher in Europe). Americans are overwhelmingly wealthier than Europeans by every other metric.

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