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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

#71

Post by seanmcdirmid »

beagle3 wrote: post #50
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…

Wealthy defendants usually have wealthy parents, grandparents, siblings...

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

#72

Post by wavefunction »

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…

>>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

This sort of precedent would only hurt the indigent or impoverished. Wealthy people have wealthy friends who will pay for their legal defense. Financing will be offered to the wealthy, allowing them to maintain access to disproportionate resources in their defense. The poor, not having access to social networks of wealthy friends or family will be screwed. It's bad enough having to get time off of work or find child-care for the poor and working-classes, now they won't have access to their meagre resources?

I wish society would do a better job of considering the ramifications of what is supposedly being accomplished by the adoption or pursuit of policies. "Equal playing field" is nice in theory but it took me a few seconds to realize that the wealthy would still be able to marshall considerable resources just like they already do, except that the poor won't.

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

#73

Post by wavefunction »

Natsu wrote: post #29
abfan1127 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

however, the person is considered innocent until proven guilty, therefore those assets shouldn't be seized until such proof.

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…

How about some sort of middle-ground? An individual is accused of $x fraud or theft, $x of assets are frozen? That seems perfectly reasonable.

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

#74

Post by gadders »

nemothekid wrote: post #44
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…

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 chi…

>>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.

This happens in the UK too. People who are unwilling to send their children to private school will instead move to a more expensive house because it is in the catchment area of a good school. This is morally equivalent to using extra money to sending your child to a private school.

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

#75

Post by simonh »

gohrt wrote: post #63
rayiner wrote: post #37

Playing up the "equal access to justice" angle here is shortsighted. Rich people have historically served as an important counterweight to government. When the government prosecutes them, it raises special interests, beyond the abstract interest in justice implicated whenever the government prosecutes someone. After all, it was the new-money commercial interests that lead the revolutions that gave us many of our mode…

Why don't poor people deserve to be a counterweight to government?

They do, but if they don't have that ability now then that's the problem we should be addressing. Removing the ability of the rich to do so won't magically give that ability to the poor.

If anyone here wants to argue that because the poor can't effectively fight government then nobody should be allowed to 'because otherwise it isn't fair', then please go ahead. But that's the logic of plucking out everyone's right eye because one person suffered an eye injury. If your idea of fairness is reducing everyone to the lowest common denominator, I want no part of it.

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

#76

Post by vidarh »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #40
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…

Total tangent but the public/private school thing is one of history. When there were no schools at all, wealthy English would have "private" tutors at home. Then schools became popular - one would go to a school with other rich children, which was "public" compared to home tutoring. When state funded schools arrived, they needed to distinguish between the phrase "public" school and "state funded" school. In the USA,…

> So simply put, the USA was already a socialist paradise by the time they came to name their schools

Amusingly Marx in the Critique of the Gotha Programme, used the (then) US system of regulation of schools without running them as an example of a system preferable to state run schools (I realize you mentioned "state funded" as opposed to "state run", but in most state funded systems too it tends to be the state that sets the curriculum in particular and exercise far more control than outlined in the quote below):

'"Elementary education by the state" is altogether objectionable. Defining by a general law the expenditures on the elementary schools, the qualifications of the teaching staff, the branches of instruction, etc., and, as is done in the United States, supervising the fulfillment of these legal specifications by state inspectors, is a very different thing from appointing the state as the educator of the people! Government and church should rather be equally excluded from any influence on the school. Particularly, indeed, in the Prusso-German Empire (and one should not take refuge in the rotten subterfuge that one is speaking of a "state of the future"; we have seen how matters stand in this respect) the state has need, on the contrary, of a very stern education by the people.'

EDIT: Note that he does not argue against public/local government influence on the schools, but it is a red thread (..) in Marx' writings that he was strongly critical of state influence vs. local, direct control.

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

#77

Post by roel_v »

Laaw wrote: post #68
roel_v wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What lawyer will take on such a case, when it's unsure if you'll ever get paid, and if you do, it's years after the actual work is done? The first thing you do after you've hired a lawyer is pay his advance. No small firm can shoulder having to front cases that can drag on for years. It's not like you can tell your staff 'yeah we'll pay you in a few years'. And when the client is found guilty, the prosecutor will con…

It's not unsure (like I said, assets unrelated to the crime can't ultimately be kept), and what else are they going to do? You can't seriously suggest all criminal defense attorneys are just going to give up on their professions. The only thing extra you'd need as a criminal defense attorney is additional capital to start up your firm, and only for actual criminal case work. They have plenty of money, enough to wait…

The vast majority of criminals have assets lower than their total penalties / damages payable. You're basically asking lawyers to hope that their clients will have enough money left after they have paid their damages? And you're saying defense lawyers will do that because... what... otherwise they'd have to find clients in other fields of law?

"It's actually super common to wait years for payment in tons of industries, including law."

8| No it's not, except in law for cases on contingency basis. Which only make sense in cases where there might be a huge settlement or punitive damages. There are very few companies that can even afford to wait for their money for years.

"They have plenty of money, enough to wait for some time for a payday."

I'm not sure if you're just trolling here? You seem to have a conception of the economics of running small law offices (which is what the vast majority of criminal defense lawyers are) that is massively detached from reality.

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

#78

Post by rogeryu »

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…

Get legal insurance. I don't know if this is available in the US, but over here in the Netherlands it's really affordable for about $150-200 a year, including things regarding your home and car. I've had this for years without using it, but it's worth the money. This year I had to use it for the first time and the service is quite good up til now.

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

#79

Post by vidarh »

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 :)

In the UK, lawyers have for a long time earned on average substantially below the average salary, and that is driven up by the top end London firms (where partners can earn millions).

The reality is that in many countries most lawyers don't earn very much, because they're not top end litigators or counsel to large companies, but spend most of their time writing "low value" documents or letters for clients with little money.

This doesn't seemed to have caused the supply of people wanting to study law to dry up.

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