Discuss law and lawyers.
We don’t know who’s guilty.
Sentences vary for the same offense. Guilty people need lawyers to argue for fair sentences and watch out for judges making mistakes.
We have enough laws that everyone is guilty of something. It may be a case of bias and selective enforcement.
Someone may be guilty of something but charged with something else or with multiple things that they didn’t do all of.
Smart, articulate criminals who are good at representing themselves in court would have a big advantage in a world where guilty people don’t have lawyers.
That’s true. When I originally shared that I think my mindset was on corporations who do bad things and people who represent them to help them not get in trouble for bad things. In my head criminal defense attorneys are good on a need by need basis but not on a continuous basis. Its weird to need a continuous defense team. I guess corporations don’t hire criminal defense lawyers on a continuous basis but they do have general lawyers to defend them against suits on a continuous basis.
But the lawyers shouldn’t do everything they can to reduce the sentences as much as they can? They shouldn’t for example try to prove innocence in court of a person they themselves believe to be guilty?
Should there exist state provided lawyers for people whom no private lawyer wants to represent?
Hmm. I think it may make sense to do anything they can in a legal ethical manner. Kinda answering it vague just because I don’t know how to answer it more precisely. I do think lawyers shouldn’t do literally anything. You may have not meant that (or you may have meant that), but some lawyers do some questionable things I’ve heard for their client.
Not an example from an actual case, but in the show The Lincoln Lawyer (TV series) - Wikipedia. There’s an episode where the main character, a defense attorney, helps to get a client off by having his client assault (by getting mad and stuff) and then having fake blood come out. The goal was to: get a mistrial, have a retrial, and the main witness for that retrial would be too scared to testify against his client. That kind of stuff is bad.
I know there’s different legal systems so I’m curious how the other ones work out, but at least in the U.S. I guess the argument goes something along the lines of: prosecutor does everything to get someone guilty, defense does everything possible to get someone innocent, the judge plays mediator, and then you somehow get a fair result (I’m not trying to be dismissive of this system, just how I wrote it out, I don’t feel like I know enough to be dismissive). If you don’t have a criminal defense attorney trying to prove them innocent I think the system wouldn’t work as well (at least how the U.S. system is).
I think ideally, no. But in the current world, yeah sure. Hmm. Initially I was thinking of how the U.S. requires public defenders for people who can’t afford a lawyer. I think with how much of a mess the justice system is, and the economy is, it makes sense to have lawyers available to poorer people. Especially cause they need the help they can get.
If you’re talking about no one being able to get representation I guess in todays context that would be fine to have someone to represent you from the state. However, I don’t think thats a realistic possibility that you could find a lawyer to represent you (outside of finances).
I started reading Examples & Explanations for The Law of Torts (6th edition) out of curiosity. The book is around ~400 pages. I plan to spend some time reading it daily and sharing about it here.
All quotes below are from Part I. Intentional Torts, Chapter 1 Fundamental Protections: The Tort of Battery:
Introduction
Medieval England, from which our tort law evolved, sought to deter physical aggression through a criminal remedy, the “appeal of felony,” for physical assaults and other invasions of personal interests. Harper, James & Gray, The Law of Torts §3.1 (3d ed. 1996)
I remember hearing that modern tort is quite different from older tort law. I wonder how much has changed from medieval torts.
Also I was a bit confused on how appeal was being used in “appeal of felony”. From appeal of felony definition · LSData :
The appeal of felony was a historical legal procedure in which a person accused another of a crime, demanded proof of innocence by wager of battle, or informed against an accomplice. It was also known as appellum de felonia.
Maybe I’m missing something but I’m kind of confused how this is a remedy for physical assaults. I don’t think this is super important so I’m just going to move on.
If the defendant was found guilty, she would be fined; that is, she would
have to pay a sum of money or forfeit her goods to the crown.
Huh. Interesting. Old torts were less about making the victim “whole” and were punishment focused like regular criminal law. Hmm. Are they claiming this stuff was old tort law or that tort law evolved from this old stuff. I think the latter.
For example, the tort of battery authorized damages for deliberate, unwanted contacts with the plaintiff’s person.
It seems as though this ought to be a very short chapter. Even the law, with its tendency to overanalyze, can only complicate a seemingly simple matter so much. And battery seems like a simple matter. Jones hits Smith: She has invaded Smith’s right to freedom from physical aggression and should be liable for any resulting injuries.
Sometimes it is that simple, but often it is not. Jones may have bumped into Smith because Lopez pushed her, or she may have collided with Smith while jumping out of the way of an oncoming car.
Since the courts have refused to condemn all unwanted contacts, they have struggled to craft a definition of battery that limits recovery to those types of contacts the law seeks to prevent. Most courts define battery as the intentional infliction of a harmful or offensive contact with the person of the plaintiff. See Restatement (Second) of Torts §13. Under this definition the defendant must act, her act must be intentional (in the restricted sense peculiar to tort law), the act must cause a contact with the victim, and the intended contact must be either harmful or offensive to the victim.
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I think I’ll respond more later, but for now I’ll show you why I thought of these questions:
It was specifically from the questions Peikoff got after the lecture, but you might find the entire video interesting if you haven’t heard it before.
To see better the purpose of defense attorneys, consider what the alternatives are. Then you can do comparisons and talk about pros and cons of alternatives. The cons of the alternatives help tell you what some of the pros of defense attorneys are.
Ahh. Gotcha. I’ve watched it before. I’ll rewatch it/rewatch the question section to see what you’re talking about and out of interest.
Oh yeah I think from what I remember I think Peikoff is kinda wrong nowadays in his opinion on the verdict. I’ll look up some stuff before making a strong claim but I remember hearing stuff about the O.J. trial that viewed it favorably. They could’ve been wrong but I think the podcast I listened to at the time made good arguments. Also I think a big thing for me now is that I’m more skeptical of the police. I think Miss Rand and Peikoff are quite favorable to the police at their time (I think Peikoff more so). Maybe the police was better at the time? But I doubt it. Another thing I guess I’ll have to look into. I do think modern U.S. police sucks.
I wanted to go through and take some notes and potentially discuss the OJ video. I’ve listened to it at least twice prior to this. Probably more (along with other Peikoff lectures). Here’s a mix of notes and comments I took up to 16 minutes:
- Says the O.J. case is an eternal concrete. An eternal concrete being something that embodies the essence of an era.
- “Upright district attorneys” and “Snake like defense attorneys” - he shared this at a part where he was just making jabs in general and kinda joking in general but i wonder how serious he takes that? does he think that D.A.s are mostly up right and that defense attorneys are mostly snake like?
- Nobody took philosophers opinions. Shocker.
- The law takes the concept of whats reasonable for granted. Does it?
- He does mention philosophy is the field that primarily deals with reason. I agree with that.
- Only epistemology can tell us whats reasonable. I agree. Therefore the attorneys and jurors were guided by epistemology.
- Many commentators said this was a triumph of emotion over reason.
- The people in the trial were thinking in terms of black racism vs white racism.
- Christopher Darden - Wikipedia - a prosecutor in the case, Peikoff describes him as heroic
- Mr. Cochran and the jury were, however, not heroic. The jurors (and Cochran too) were not concerned with truth but with vengeance.
- Mentions polls and says that blacks and whites had very different views on the case. Blacks had a view very different from the whites. This was attributed to the upbringing and interactions that blacks had with the police.
- Hmm. So this reminds of Kantian(?) kind of stuff where each collective forms his own independent view of reality distinct from other collectives. That’s bad. I agree. However, to what extent can you take different experiences into account? I don’t think both blacks and whites could both have a detailed analysis and have a differing opinion, but if you were to do a cursory look at the trial I think its reasonable to go off of your experience and say the police are bad here. If police have been mostly bad to you I think its fair to think that police are being bad in many instances you hear about them. However, I don’t think its fair to keep thinking that after looking at the evidence.
- Peikoff declares that their is no reasonable way to interpret this case as favorable to OJ Simpson.
- He says that people wanted OJ to win as a protest(?, also not his words) against various grievances that the black community has suffered.
- Jurors did not deliberate. Verdict was instant. Later jurors said they had plenty of time throughout the trial to deliberate. Peikoff claims that the only thing explaining an instant verdict was emotion/rage. I think this is an odd claim. Peikoff views the evidence as very against OJ. Probably overwhelmingly so. Would he think the jury inappropriate if they immediately voted against OJ immediately? I don’t think so, but idk.
- The instant deliberation is seen as extra bad because the jurors were ordered to deliberate. Part of me thinks Peikoff would see it as virtuous if jurors didn’t deliberate and went against OJ, since that would show they hadn’t fell for the emotional tricks or whatever of the defense. I don’t know though. Could be too harsh on Peikoff.
- Also a note on jurors: they’re, typically, average people who are forced to do something they don’t care about. The idea that even if they respected the law here and went to deliberate is a good thing is kinda odd to me. Or, put differently, is going into deliberation room and just yapping about stuff when you’re not going to change your mind virtuous?
- Peikoff says the basis of the rage comes from certain philosophical doctrines shared at universities and not from (or maybe not just) actual grievances black people experienced.
I watched 15 more minutes of the OJ video from Peikoff:
Peikoff bagins talking about self sacrifice, John Dewey. more or less gives a quick history of philosophy of all the bad stuff in American universities
- Statism leads to racism. Mmm. Yeah sure I agree. His point make sense.
- Hmm. I should probably look at the OJ case stuff myself. Seems like Peikoffs main focus on this case is that OJ was let off due to racism. Due to us vs. them. So in this instance the famous “if it does not fit. you must acquit” is unnecessary. anyone could have gotten OJ off and other intellectual fluff is unimportant here?
- Peikoff claims that the jurors threw out the mountain of evidence against OJ. They did by throwing it out (ignoring it) using reasonable doubt.
- Concepts of reason governing the OJ trial:
- So the defense comes up with scenarios apparently without evidence. The scenarios are plausible, but have no evidentiary basis.
- Ok yeah. Its possible you can’t prove that it isn’t possible. So you have reasonable doubt. hmm. ok.
Ok So far it seems Peikoffs two big issues with the OJ case are:
1.) Racism. Us vs. them mentality was apparently all throughout the case.
2.) Bad epistemology related to scenarios and doubt.
The second one kinda interests me. Apparently the defense would give hypotheticals favorable to OJ. Stuff along the lines of “it is possible, under the evidence, that the police planted stuff against OJ.” “does the prosecution have evidence that this possible scenario didn’t occur” “no?” “then you have reasonable doubt as to OJ’s guilt, do not convict”
Want to try to do an organized analysis of the OJ case?
If so, start by making a facts tree. Organize the important facts/evidence into categories and if necessary sub-categories. Mark disputed facts and give alternatives.
Sure!
I finished the rest of Peikoff’s lecture. Here are the remainder of the notes I took earlier today:
- F. Lee Bailey - Wikipedia
- Hmm. Peikoff’s issue is that all these hypotheses are baseless. Hmm. I feel like CF has said something about this. Do these claims need a basis to be addressed? I’m unsure.
- Arbitrary assertion = assertion devoid of evidence
- He say’s California trials are a charade. Hmm. Possible?
- The evidence was overwhelming against OJ. Now that I think about it, Peikoff is talking about a weighted system of evidence.
- Arbitrary versus possible
- Possible means some, however minimal, evidence
- Alan Dershowitz bad. Quotes Dershowitz saying something along the lines of a defense attorneys job is to make sure the truth about their client never comes out (if the client is guilty of course).
- Hmm Peikoff says this case could lead to an overreaction where convictions become easier. Is that what happened? I think convictions are easy to get today and I assumed that was always the case. Maybe not? I mean its possible. [[Liability The Legal Revolution and Its Consequences]] talks about how modern tort law came about in a quick time frame of reforms. Maybe something similar occurred with criminal law.
- Hmm. Idk I think its a bit different when you don’t have the best lawyer in a legal system. I think our legal system, if we continue in the way we are, should aim to become one where the quality of defense attorney doesn’t matter too much. Peikoff says earn more get better stuff. Sure. But I think having access to services and goods such as healthcare, food, cars, etc. is much more different than making sure you’re not screwed over by the legal system/the government.
- Appropriate role of defense attorneys:
- Before taking note of this: Its clear Peikoff disagrees with DAs trying to get their clients off no matter what. What does he think of prosecutors who want a guilty verdict no matter what? Was this not a thing back then? Less of a thing? Would he think of them as mistaken, because (as many DAs will agree) most people you represent are guilty in some manner?
- Ok Peikoff doesn’t think the adversarial system should be a defense trying to get them off no matter what and a prosecutor trying to convict no matter what.
- Justice should be your primary concern as an attorney.
- DAs should take the guilt of their client into consideration when deciding to take his case. I assume not just from statements given from the client to the DA but also that the DA should consider the evidence in the case to evaluate whether his client is guilty or not.
- DAs should not help guilty people or, at best, they should focus on helping them get mitigating sentences. Their role is helping clients that are:
- Innocent
- Truly have reasonable doubt. If, after evaluating the evidence, you as the DA are still unsure of your clients guilt or innocence then its fair, according to Peikoff, to take the case.
Sure. I know the case was from the 90s. Are you familiar with it at all?
I’m going to start off from the Murder trial of O. J. Simpson - Wikipedia.
Yeah a bit.
I read the wikipedia up until media coverage. The trial section probably has more evidence. What do you mean by give alternatives. Like the reasons for why its disputed? Such as the DNA evidence being in dispute. The alternative being because the defense said that police department mishandled it?
Here’s what I came up with so far:
All the evidence I read so far had reasons why it was bad/not allowed.
Hmm. Maybe AI would be helpful in getting an idea for this case, since I really don’t know much about this case.I’ll try that out tomorrow.
I’m not sure what your goal is with this tree. It doesn’t look useful to me. For example, it doesn’t include the most basic fact: two people were murdered. I don’t think I could use this tree to analyze the case.
Also I thought that you had spent a lot of time on this case and knew enough to discuss it. If you have to look up the facts, then it sounds like Peikoff didn’t share them, just shared his conclusions, which would leave me wondering why that interests you when you don’t know the facts and therefore can’t understand how he got his analysis from the facts and can’t do critical thinking about his analysis using the facts.
I was trying to do an exercise with something you had a lot of knowledge about (more than me!), not something where you don’t know anything and are looking it up as you go along.
I’m not sure either. Hmm. I think it was to put all the evidence in a tree. Ahh. I see why I didn’t put the people being murdered. I read facts/evidence as just evidence. My goal was making a tree of all the evidence. Only tree’d the stuff I read up to the at that point.
I don’t think you could use it to analyze no. It was W.i.P. but the way I was going I’m pretty sure it still wouldn’t be useful.
Sorry if I gave that impression. I did say previously:
That was a from a legal podcast that gave a rough overview of the OJ case and then shared why they were favorable to OJ, but that was 2+ years ago from something I just kind of treated as background noise.
I do like the lawyers. So their opinion plus my general skepticism of police nowadays made me share my skepticism about the OJ decision but I know no big facts about the case. I knew DNA evidence was a big thing, a glove plays a big part, and that’s about it.
Hmm as to why I was interested in this lecture. I’m not too sure. I will say he did share some facts but it wasn’t anything comprehensive. He didn’t just say that the defense was making up baseless claims. He would say that the defense made a baseless claim about the DNA evidence. Also the lecture had commentary on lawyers and the culture that I found interesting.
Sorry again for giving that impression. Should I still try and do this or would you suggest against it? Only reason I’m interested in this case is Peikoff saying that this is a very important case. An “eternal concrete” as he put it. If you think it’s not worth it I’ll pause for now.
Is there a legal case you know a lot about that you’d be interested in analyzing?
The closet would be Anderson v. Cryovac, Inc.. This is the case covered in the book A Civil Action - Wikipedia. I read it in high school. Really really liked it. At the time I took a lot of notes on it.
I say closest thought because I don’t much details. Probably cause it was so long ago. I say probably because remembering details is something that’s come up before.
I don’t think there would be any case I would remember enough about to do without significant looking up. Like I don’t know what level of detail I should know. A common case I’ve heard about in law 101 videos of contracts is Lucy v. Zehmer - Wikipedia. This is something I heard about in the past year through videos and stuff, but since I haven’t done much interaction with it I really don’t remember the details too well. Oh yeah right that’s the issue: if I don’t interact with stuff much I don’t remember it well. There are cases I know some rough detail of, but nothing I’ve interacted with in significant enough detail to remember. If this is a pre-requisite I need to work on before even trying anything with law stuff let me know.
Ooooh. I was very interested in Roe v. Wade. Specifically because of Miss Rands comments that the reasoning behind the decision was bad. She liked the decision, disliked the reasoning. I thought that was interesting. However, I don’t know a lot about that case.
Hmm. Yeah. I’d need to do research into just about anything. I’m not against that but idk. I’m quite interested in the Roe v Wade one.
Thoughts?
Do you like doing serious legal research in depth? Did you ever try it? Do you ever binge it for hours past your bedtime? Or do you just like listening to podcast- and YouTube-level legal commentary?
If you want to go in depth on some legal issue that’s fine with me. It’s up to you if you prefer that or coding or think you can do both. Or if you want me to give tutoring topic recommendations personally I’d focus more on the philosophy topics I’ve focused on in the last 5 years (I’ve focused on them more because I think they’re good) but I’m flexible and it’s up to you what you’re interested in and want to study as long as it’s broadly within areas I deal with (law and coding are both easily within scope, no problem).