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The Supreme Court could soon deliver a blow to the Sixth Amendment

washingtonpost.com

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Re: The Supreme Court could soon deliver a blow to the Sixth Amendment

#41

Post by Natsu »

vinceguidry wrote: post #36
Natsu wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't about civil asset forfeiture or drugs at all. I can sympathize with requiring that you be found guilty of something before taking all your stuff, but this isn't even about that. And even if it were, a public defender's office that could take on that kind of case to help you get your money back when you're innocent would help stop abuse of it. What this case is actually about is someone who allegedly defrau…

While true, this argument falls flat when you realize the limitations. If I made millions legally, then why in the world would I decide to start making all subsequent money illegally? Wouldn't it be much better to just keep milking my legal cash cow? The government doesn't seem to be limiting their purview to just the money that was supposedly illicitly gained. They're freezing all moneys that could conceivable by su…

> If I made millions legally, then why in the world would I decide to start making all subsequent money illegally?

I would suggest you pose that question to this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Madoff

> They're freezing all moneys that could conceivable by subject to a fine. It's not just the $5000, but everything. That's extremely problematic from a rights standpoint.

From what I read, it's only freezing what's necessary to pay them back. That's not a public defender defending him in the oral arguments. So this is only problematic as far as your Sixth Amendment right to counsel goes as long as you allow the public defenders to be ineffective and expect people to be able to get better lawyers with more money, leaving those with less money less able to defend their legal rights.

Now it's fair to say that the government seizing money in other contexts, like civil asset forfeiture, is problematic. It's just not something this case is about.

Re: The Supreme Court could soon deliver a blow to the Sixth Amendment

#42

Post by davidgay »

vinceguidry wrote: post #32
davidgay wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> though it is a bit like solving the equal access to education problem by banning all private colleges -- more than a little absurd. While one can definitely argue against this view, it's far from absurd: the basic argument is that the availability of private college/lawyers/your-favourite-resource favours the rich and powerful, and that you can only get actual equal access for all to education/trial-defense/somethi…

> the basic argument is that the availability of private college/lawyers/your-favourite-resource favours the rich and powerful, and that you can only get actual equal access for all to education/trial-defense/something-else if you force the rich and powerful to have an equal playing field with everyone else (at which point they will then use their power to ensure a decent/good level of the service for everyone, inclu…

Sorry if I wasn't clear. This is not a legal argument, but a political one.

Re: The Supreme Court could soon deliver a blow to the Sixth Amendment

#43

Post by Natsu »

abfan1127 wrote: post #39
Natsu wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two problems: the asserts are only frozen in this case. This is a fraud case, not a drug case, and they've not been subjected to civil asset forfeiture, so this doesn't touch on that. The other is that if they can never freeze the assets, someone can simply spend or transfer all of their money after stealing it. If a thief has $5,000 and they steal $5,000, they can spend the stolen money and then claim the $5,000 the…

you are still assuming that the thief is guilty.

Even you are calling that fictitious entity a "thief" rather than an "alleged thief." But it's just a character in a story, not a real person, nor does it represent anyone.

It's normal to make that part of a story to see how the law would play out in various cases. The point of that has nothing to do with guilt or innocence, it's to point out that the outcome of the desired ruling is simply to reward people for spending stolen money. This is a perfectly normal thing that is often used when discussing laws. [1]

This is different from saying that about the actual people being accused. This context is important. Otherwise one is failing to separate reality and fantasy.

[1] Many examples can be found here: http://lawcomic.net/ It's written by an actual lawyer: http://burneylawfirm.com/Firm/

Re: The Supreme Court could soon deliver a blow to the Sixth Amendment

#44

Post by nemothekid »

davidgay wrote: post #26
clavalle wrote: post #5

>the court will decide whether the government can freeze all of a defendant’s assets before trial, even those the government itself concedes aren’t tainted by any connection to criminality, thus effectively preventing that defendant from paying for his own defense. The shadow issue of our time is equal access to the legal system. It will be interesting to see how this changes the dynamic of the court system if the Su…

> though it is a bit like solving the equal access to education problem by banning all private colleges -- more than a little absurd. While one can definitely argue against this view, it's far from absurd: the basic argument is that the availability of private college/lawyers/your-favourite-resource favours the rich and powerful, and that you can only get actual equal access for all to education/trial-defense/somethi…

I'd argue that Swiss public schools being so "good" is a function of social homogeneity and income equality, than it is one of forcing rich kids to attend public schools.

The obvious counter example is the US, where public schooling is sectioned off by neighborhood and rich kids still attend school together because they can afford to live in their respective neighborhoods. Even worse, the US spends more money per child on public teaching, and still has some dreadfully bad public schools due to various inefficiencies.

In short, I think your assessment is backwards private college/lawyers/your-favourite-resource don't favor the rich, instead the rich build private college/lawyers/your-favourite-resource to favor themselves (or their children).

Re: The Supreme Court could soon deliver a blow to the Sixth Amendment

#45

Post by runevault »

omonra wrote: post #35
bayesianhorse wrote: post #12

Maybe the public defender system may benefit, because when even wealthy or middle-class defendants can't pay for their lawyers, more lawyers are forced to either become public defenders or work on similar arguments, making financial means of defendants less of a factor in choosing their clients.

Or fewer people will want to become lawyers. Really thought this one through, I see :)

I don't understand why people continue to go into law in the numbers they do. Everything I've seen over the last few years indicates the number of law jobs being created/opening up due to retirement is far lower than the number of people passing the bar every year. Considering how much it costs to go through law school, it seems like an insane gamble unless you already have ins at a significant law firm.

Re: The Supreme Court could soon deliver a blow to the Sixth Amendment

#47

Post by Laaw »

hliyan wrote: post #46

As someone from a third world country with a 'poor' human rights track record, US prosecutor conduct baffles even me. At least in this part of the world you expect to get screwed over by incompetence or corruption, and not the "system".

That's most likely because you only hear about the extraordinary. The ordinary cases are just that, ordinary, and justice gets served with little fuss.

Re: The Supreme Court could soon deliver a blow to the Sixth Amendment

#48

Post by Laaw »

Can't you just pay your defense attorney after the trial, guilty or not, whenever your assets are unfrozen?

Assets frozen during trial that aren't linked to any criminal activity can't be permanently confiscated, so your defense attorney can just settle up your bill at the end of the trial, when the assets are unfrozen. Maybe that's not how it works now, but if this happens, then defense firms will have to do their billing this way.

Not ideal and I don't see the point, but how is this a big deal?

Re: The Supreme Court could soon deliver a blow to the Sixth Amendment

#49

Post by hliyan »

Laaw wrote: post #47
hliyan wrote: post #46

As someone from a third world country with a 'poor' human rights track record, US prosecutor conduct baffles even me. At least in this part of the world you expect to get screwed over by incompetence or corruption, and not the "system".

That's most likely because you only hear about the extraordinary. The ordinary cases are just that, ordinary, and justice gets served with little fuss.

You're probably right. Plus I wasn't exactly fair in comparing a population of 300 million to one of 20 million. But where I come from 'going by the book' usually results in the guilty going free, not the innocent getting screwed. IANAL, but I wonder whether this is due to some difference between US law and Roman-Dutch/British law?

Re: The Supreme Court could soon deliver a blow to the Sixth Amendment

#50

Post by beagle3 »

bayesianhorse wrote: post #12

Maybe the public defender system may benefit, because when even wealthy or middle-class defendants can't pay for their lawyers, more lawyers are forced to either become public defenders or work on similar arguments, making financial means of defendants less of a factor in choosing their clients.

First, for this to even remotely have a chance, it must mean that every wealthy defendant must have their asset frozen, which isn't under consideration (or going to happen, and I think it is for the best that it wouldn't).

And even if it would - wealthy defendants are likely to have "attorney fund pacts" - I'll fund your lawyer if your assets are frozen, if you'll fund mine. Or some more general "asset freeze lawyer insurance" practice will arise.

The problem is that the wealthy in the US do not believe that they play by the same rules, nor do they believe they should play by the same rules.

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