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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

#301

Post by alabastervlog »

briandear wrote: post #160
jajko wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are separate issues. Healthcare aint cheap anywhere for the state, but its perfectly fundable for any but the most poor and broken countries in the world, to a very decent level. But US is broken in another way - everything is for-profit, no real oversight, and unrestricted capitalism full throttle. Then you get what you got. There are 2 absolutely basic pillars of modern free society worth living in - 1) how i…

> no real oversight The US health system is excessively regulated. It’s anything but unrestricted capitalism. I would argue that the regulation is what makes the system so broken.

We should pick one of the other OECD states to copy, then. One supposes their systems are less-regulated, since they're cheaper for similar or better outcomes. That must be the case, if excessive regulation is the key problem with the US system, and not something else.

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

#302

Post by lurk2 »

dagw wrote: post #290
lurk2 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

there is no statistical basis to the claims you are making Are you really arguing that Americans (and especially Americans below the median) don't have higher levels of medical debt, higher rates of medical bankruptcy, and get/take less vacation than Europeans.

Those were not the claims being made. The claim was that:

> Most Americans cannot: 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 do these things, with the possible exception of month-long vacations.

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

#303

Post by nickpsecurity »

netcan wrote: post #235
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…

> Just like healthcare, US justice is only for people with money. In most times and places, this is true. Ancient times, recent history, autocracies, democracies... Justice is expensive. Justice, and the legal college as an ideal often specifically negates this. Equality before the law. Blind justice, etc. That said... justice is inevitably ridden with contradiction, hypocrisy and whatnot. That's what justice is. Deg…

In God's system (Mosaic law), they would go before the judges, plead their case, bring evidence (eg witnesses), and something would be decided. The U.S. was originally based on Jethro and Moses' method. Over time, the self-centered and godless people did to it what the Pharisees did to the other system. It was no longer about what's good or even doable for human beings.

I also like that the Biblical law, from commands to its case law, is the size of a small paperback. Much of that is redundant or case specific, too. One person could learn it in a few months of study. Whereas, there's no hope of ever knowing if you're breaking some law in this country.

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

#304

Post by PaulHoule »

nukem222 wrote: post #233
kubb wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this where the whole Europe bashing on social media comes from? US needing to believe that a better society, rule of law, social services isn’t real in Europe and impossible in general?

Let's just Europe does not send its best to represent itself on social media (a curse we all share, frankly). You talk to enough confidently-ignorant assholes and any desire to be polite vanishes. The number of europeans who think preservatives are illegal in the EU is pretty befuddling.

When I spent a year in Germany circa 1999 I thought the food labels sucked compared to food labels in the US. There were cigarette vending machines on the streets all over Dresden and they even had little candy vending machines below them.

When it comes to occupational health and safety you can't say European standards are better.

The established process for making plutonium fuel is to grind uranium oxide together with plutonium oxide in a high energy ball mill, then pack the powder into pellets, sinter them, and then have somebody stick the pellets into a fuel rod with gloves. The process creates Pu nanoparticles, once of which could give you lung cancer if it gets deep into your lungs.

In the factory Karen Silkwood worked at they couldn't control the dust to the extent that people could work without wearing respirators. The factory successfully made fuel for the Fast Flux Test Facility but being forced to wear respirators was a "normalization of deviance" that regulators would not grant to subsequent MOX (mixed-oxide) facilities in the US. In France on the other hand, wearing respirators was seen as just fine.

It was a difficult problem to determine the occupational hazard at that kind of factory, confused by the "Healthy Worker" effect such that people who work in almost any job are healthier than the average population. Circa 2015 the evidence was clear that MOX workers really do get lung cancer, I think it's no coincidence that the US shuttered a planned MOX factory around this time.

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

#305

Post by FilosofumRex »

NotYourLawyer wrote: post #225
FilosofumRex wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because cases are very recent , as in 2024-25 and one is still pending. I got it from a local court listener who said they had filed an 800 page lawsuit against alleging various undisclosed connections between major corps, elite universities and the notorious Jeffery Epstein.

An 800 page lawsuit full of conspiracy theories? Sounds legit.

It's technically public record and is available for your review.

Both men are highly educated and had no prior records which is why they've been able to fight their cases. one is a Yale/Harvard mathematician and actually worked for the Lincoln & Draper Labs where he alleges Epstein was funding the lie-detector cheating research. The other had been a research fellow with MIT Energy Initiative and was at the Media Lab when Epstein was funding them.

So judge for yourself...

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

#306

Post by ziddoap »

db48x wrote: post #261
mcherm wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people without the credential can still be good at their job Yes, and some can be very bad at their job. The goal of requiring one to pass a bar exam in order to practice law is to minimize the number of practicioners who are horribly incompetent, because of the serious damage it can do. It seems to me that a judge who doesn't know how the law works can do even MORE severe damage.

That’s a fair opinion, but 28 out of 50 states voted otherwise. If you want to change that then talk to your state’s congresscritters. Just remember that there are plenty of terrible lawyers out there who did pass the bar, and plenty of terrible judges who were once terrible lawyers. A degree is ultimately just a piece of paper (or parchment, if they went to a fancy school). It’s not a guarantee that they’ll be any g…

>A degree is ultimately just a piece of paper

Would you be comfortable visiting a doctor who didn't have their "piece of paper"?

Obviously a degree is not a guarantee of skill or knowledge. No one is saying it is. However, a degree is a very strong indicator that the person is above some minimum level of knowledge.

The counterpoint of "there are shitty lawyers with degrees" is ridiculous. Remove the requirements and those same people would still be shitty lawyers -- you've just lowered the floor so that even more shitty lawyers can practice.

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

#307

Post by s_dev »

Veelox wrote: post #203
sersi wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think at this point the general consensus of most Europeans is that the US has more in common with a developing nation than with a developed nation when it comes to equality in the eye of justice, equal access to health care, support for the downtrodden and freedoms...

This general consensus is part of why Trump gets support for his recent trade and defense comments and actions. Also, from an economic perspective the US has been successful and has poured that success into different buckets than Europe would prefer but that's fine, let the US be the US and let Europe be Europe. Numbers for anyone curious US gdp per capita ~$82.7k EU gdp per capita ~$41.1k

GDP of Mississippi and Bavaria, Germany are about the same.

You would be simply insane to think that Bavaria wasn't far far wealthier than Mississippi though.

This doesn't show the limits of either the US or European ways of life but rather GDP itself as a figure. It has it's uses but that's it. Lay people are far too dependent on GDP as a meaningful indicator of wealth. Professional economists use a variety of metrics to compare and contrast different areas and systems.

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

#308

Post by monkey_monkey »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #303
netcan wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just like healthcare, US justice is only for people with money. In most times and places, this is true. Ancient times, recent history, autocracies, democracies... Justice is expensive. Justice, and the legal college as an ideal often specifically negates this. Equality before the law. Blind justice, etc. That said... justice is inevitably ridden with contradiction, hypocrisy and whatnot. That's what justice is. Deg…

In God's system (Mosaic law), they would go before the judges, plead their case, bring evidence (eg witnesses), and something would be decided. The U.S. was originally based on Jethro and Moses' method. Over time, the self-centered and godless people did to it what the Pharisees did to the other system. It was no longer about what's good or even doable for human beings. I also like that the Biblical law, from command…

> godless people did to it what the Pharisees did to the other system.

Oops, sorry about that.

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

#309

Post by fkyoureadthedoc »

sixothree wrote: post #251
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…

Back when I was too broke to afford a lawyer, my favorite part of traffic court the couple times I went was all the people video calling in from the local jail who are in jail because they didn't pay tickets they couldn't afford and then inform the court that no they still can't pay them because they are in jail.

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

#310

Post by monkey_monkey »

ty6853 wrote: post #280
marcus_holmes wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I live next to the us-mexico border, in a place with basically no police services. There are (true) signs everywhere warning of cartels roaming, often with automatic weapons diverted from the Mexican military. Maybe they won't ever bother me, but better to have and not need, than the other way around.

I mean, if the cartel with their automatic weapons come at you, do you really think your stash is going to protect you?

Also, lack of police services is probably commensurate with the low levels of taxation that so many Americans desperately want and vote for.

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