Perhaps because she was the most qualified of those who applied for the job?
Just a guess.
A BS Smear Job
Re: A BS Smear Job
"Hang on while I log in to the James Webb telescope to search the known universe for who the fuck asked you." -- James Fell
Re: A BS Smear Job
There are so many accented people in Cali: East Indians, Vietnamese, Chinese, Philipine. Soon Mexican citizens will be the largest percentage of the population; the actual number of people of Mexican descent in the state probably already does make up the majority. If you have an accent that doesn't indicate you're in the country illegally.
Re: A BS Smear Job
More to the point, the truth usually is not RELEVANT.If I've learned anything in the trenches of criminal law, it's that the truth really isn't discoverable.
Treat Gaza like Carthage.
Re: A BS Smear Job
God, how the heart trembles for its country.Jarlaxle wrote:More to the point, the truth usually is not RELEVANT.If I've learned anything in the trenches of criminal law, it's that the truth really isn't discoverable.
Reason is valuable only when it performs against the wordless physical background of the universe.
Re: A BS Smear Job
Well, the adversary system is better than trial by combat, don‘t you think? But on second thought trial buy combat has been out of style out for over a thousand years; it would seem in over a millennia we could come up with something better than who is the best used car salesman. Think about it, the man with the money is the man that can sue. If the mother in law is a millionaire and wants her son to have custody the children after the divorce, is that fair to the struggling working mom who does not have the money to adequately defend herself in civil court. Have we just traded a contest involving swords and axes to one in which the weapons are words and trickery?Andrew D wrote:God, how the heart trembles for its country.Jarlaxle wrote:More to the point, the truth usually is not RELEVANT.If I've learned anything in the trenches of criminal law, it's that the truth really isn't discoverable.
Soon, I’ll post my farewell message. The end is starting to get close. There are many misconceptions about me, and before I go, to live with my ancestors on the steppes, I want to set the record straight.
Re: A BS Smear Job
Well, "the man who can sue," child-custody disputes, and "civil court" aren't exactly germane to "the trenches of criminal law".
But maybe you're right. Maybe "in over a millenni[um] we [should have] come up with something better than who is the best used car salesman."
What alternative do you suggest?
But maybe you're right. Maybe "in over a millenni[um] we [should have] come up with something better than who is the best used car salesman."
What alternative do you suggest?
Reason is valuable only when it performs against the wordless physical background of the universe.
Re: A BS Smear Job
Unlike you I am not a lawyer; I am out side of my comfort zone here. We are not talking about history, the US constitution and government or the military. But justice is important to all of us; anyone of us can be the accused, the victim of a crime or a civil action, so I have a few opinions on the subject:Andrew D wrote:Well, "the man who can sue," child-custody disputes, and "civil court" aren't exactly germane to "the trenches of criminal law".
But maybe you're right. Maybe "in over a millenni[um] we [should have] come up with something better than who is the best used car salesman."
What alternative do you suggest?
For one, I would suggest the position of the judge be modified slightly. Instead of the judge being an uninterested referee he would charged as the advocate of the truth. He would still be impartial but he would not allow an attorneys ineptitude or charisma to hinder the truth. Cleverness would be worth less and truth more.
Next an individual police record including juvenile would be available to jury if the judge felt it was relevant.
And last, the judges instructions to the grand jury would emphasize that it is their duty to protect the people from an over zealous prosecutor. The old joke that a prosecutor could get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich should be a preposterous idea. The purpose of the grand jury is to protect the people from the government.
Soon, I’ll post my farewell message. The end is starting to get close. There are many misconceptions about me, and before I go, to live with my ancestors on the steppes, I want to set the record straight.
Re: A BS Smear Job
The problems come up when we get down to the nitty-gritty. It is easy enough to state goals which the legal system (or, better, systems; proceedings in a criminal court, proceedings in a civil court, and proceedings in an administrative tribunal are all legal proceedings, but they are very different from one another) should strive for -- I do it all the time.
The hard work is formulating rules which make those goals happen in the day-to-day operations of the systems. And the crux of the difficulty is that we don't have just one goal; we have numerous goals, and they often conflict.
At the most abstract level, of course, we have one goal: justice. But that's rather like observing that the world would be a better place if all of us treated each other fairly and compassionately. Of course it would. And we would all be happier if there were no terminable, incurable diseases and if earthquakes and lightning and tornadoes never killed people, etc.
The world in which we actually live, however, shows no sign of allowing for those happy possibilities. Whatever system we come up with is going to be formulated by fallible people just like us and administered by fallible people just like us. Even assuming that everyone involved acts with the best of intentions -- an assumption which is itself a denial of human of fallibility; human fallibility all too plainly reveals itself in our succumbing to the urge toward evil as well as in our missing the mark when trying to do good -- we are sometimes going to screw it up.
So the question becomes what rules -- a system being a coherent set of rules (or a set of rules that is at least struggling toward coherence) -- can we establish that will make it most likely that we will screw it up in the least fraction of individual instances. Justice is a worthy goal. (But even in the abstract, it has some competition in the worthiness department: "Temper justice with mercy" is not an admonition to be taken lightly.)
Turning from the abstract to the concrete, you say:
And a "police record" does not demonstrate that anyone has ever been guilty of anything. Being arrested is not the same as -- indeed, it does not even resemble -- being convicted. I have been arrested on numerous occasions. I have never been convicted of anything (setting aside traffic infractions; I don't think that getting a few speeding tickets over my decades of driving makes me a career criminal). I have been arrested (a) for things which I, in fact, had not done and (b) for things which I had done but were, in fact, not crimes.
If I am accused of a crime, why should those arrests -- every one of which, again, resulted in my not being convicted of (and, in my case, not even being tried for) anything -- be paraded in front of the jury whose job it is to decide whether I am guilty of what I am accused of? It seems to me that the only reason to tell the jury that I have been arrested before is to encourage the jury to hand out a Tom-Sawyeresque verdict: "Well, he may not be guilty of this, but he's probably guilty of something." Is that really how we want to administer justice?
In the criminal justice system, we are trying -- as we ought to try -- to do two things at once: We are trying to ensure that those who are guilty of crimes are convicted of those crimes, and we are trying to ensure that those who are not guilty of crimes are acquitted of those crimes (or, even better, not charged with them in the first place). Most of the rules which we have in place and which are designed to ensure the conviction of the guilty carry with them some risk of convicting the innocent. And most of the rules which we have in place and which are designed to ensure the exoneration of the innocent carry with them some risk of exonerating the guilty.
We can tinker with those rules to improve the accuracy of their results. And we have been doing so for a long time. For example, we have been coping with the problem of hearsay evidence for centuries. Virtually everyone has heard of hearsay, but very few people -- if the number is even one out of fifty, I would be astonished -- can describe accurately what it actually is.
And I don't mean accurately describe all the permutations -- the exceptions to the hearsay rule, which exceptions always apply, which exceptions apply only sometimes, and all that. I mean just the basics: Forget about whether any exception to the hearsay rule applies; simply ask: "The witness says '[whatever]'. Is that testimony hearsay or not?" Again, if more than one out of fifty people could get it right (and say why it is or is not hearsay; people who come to either conclusion without knowing why might just as well be flipping coins), I would be astonished.
But even within the hearsay rule -- that is, even if the testimony is hearsay at all -- there are myriad exceptions to that rule. And some of the exceptions apply in all circumstances; others apply only in some circumstances.
One can look at that intricate web of complications and conclude that it sometimes produces the wrong results. And one would be right: Sometimes the outcome of all of those rules and rules-within-rules and rules-within-rules-within-rules is that testimony which should be admitted is excluded; other times the outcome is that testimony which should be excluded is admitted.
But the point is that the whole web of complications is the result of our struggling toward some set of rules that will maximize the likelihood of our arriving at the truth.* We decide not to admit hearsay testimony, because we see that it poses a high risk of leading a jury to a conclusion other than the truth. We limit the definition of what is hearsay, because we see that we have gone too far in one direction and thereby also risked leading a jury to a conclusion other than the truth. We create exceptions to the limited definition of hearsay, because we see that we have gone too far in the opposite direction and thereby also risked leading a jury to a conclusion other than the truth. We create limits on the applicability of the limited definition of hearsay, because we see that we have gone too far in the first direction and thereby again risked leading a jury to a conclusion other than the truth. We create exceptions to the limits on the applicability of the limited definition ....
All along the way, what we are struggling to do is come up with the set of rules -- after all, when the question for the judge is "Is the witness allowed to testify '[whatever]'?" there have to be some rules for the judge to follow in answering that question, unless we want the system to be that the judge can do whatever he or she pleases -- that best walks the tightrope between allowing testimony which will tend to lead the jury away from the truth and disallowing testimony that would have have tended to lead the jury toward the truth.
I'm not saying that we have done a bang-up job of it. But ignoring the complexities involved is not at all helpful.
We have not wrestled with these things -- and the hearsay rule (with its limitations, exceptions, exceptions to the exceptions, and so forth) is only one example of what we have been wrestling with -- for centuries in order to keep lawyers gainfully employed. We have been wrestling with them for centuries because every modification or set of modifications we make in order to solve one problem or set of problems raises another problem or set of problems. So we make another modification or set of modifications, and we confront another problem or set of problems. And on and on and on.
I doubt that we will ever come to the end of that process. I doubt that an end to that process even exists. The best we can hope for, it seems to me, is that the set of rules we have today gets us a bit closer to the mark than did the set of rules we had yesterday.
And sometimes we take steps backwards. We see ten cases in which the present set of rules has led to what we consider outrageous results, so we change the rules to avoid those results. And then the new rules lead to fifty cases in which we see what we consider outrageous results, so we change the rules back again. Or we come up with new rules.
We just keep mucking our way through, knowing that the odds of our coming up with a perfect set of rules are about the same as the odds of everyone's being nice to everyone else. We hope that at least the rules that we have today are less inadequate than the rules that we had yesterday or last year or last century. And all in all, I think that they are.
-------------------------
* Complicating matters further, even truth is only one of various competing goals. If the police had carte blanche to storm into anyone's house at any time without any justification, we would surely solve more crimes: Evidence that never would have been discovered under the rules we live by now would be discovered, and people who richly deserve punishment would get it.
But is that the kind of society in which we wish to live? We sometimes value freedom over truth; we sometimes value truth over freedom. And the balancing act in which we constantly engage on the question of freedom vs. truth is a macrocosm of the balancing act in which we constantly engage on the question of whether particular kinds of evidence are more likely to lead toward or away from truth.
The hard work is formulating rules which make those goals happen in the day-to-day operations of the systems. And the crux of the difficulty is that we don't have just one goal; we have numerous goals, and they often conflict.
At the most abstract level, of course, we have one goal: justice. But that's rather like observing that the world would be a better place if all of us treated each other fairly and compassionately. Of course it would. And we would all be happier if there were no terminable, incurable diseases and if earthquakes and lightning and tornadoes never killed people, etc.
The world in which we actually live, however, shows no sign of allowing for those happy possibilities. Whatever system we come up with is going to be formulated by fallible people just like us and administered by fallible people just like us. Even assuming that everyone involved acts with the best of intentions -- an assumption which is itself a denial of human of fallibility; human fallibility all too plainly reveals itself in our succumbing to the urge toward evil as well as in our missing the mark when trying to do good -- we are sometimes going to screw it up.
So the question becomes what rules -- a system being a coherent set of rules (or a set of rules that is at least struggling toward coherence) -- can we establish that will make it most likely that we will screw it up in the least fraction of individual instances. Justice is a worthy goal. (But even in the abstract, it has some competition in the worthiness department: "Temper justice with mercy" is not an admonition to be taken lightly.)
Turning from the abstract to the concrete, you say:
How can those coexist? If a judge, in her capacity as "advocate of the truth," decides that one side is telling the truth, and the other side is not, how can she remain impartial? "Cleverness would be worth less and truth more" may be an impeccable aspiration, but how do we make it work? How do we distinguish the "cleverness" that obfuscates the truth from the "cleverness" that brings the truth to light out of a fog of doubt and confusion?For one, I would suggest the position of the judge be modified slightly. Instead of the judge being an uninterested referee he would charged as the advocate of the truth. He would still be impartial ....
Why? The question for the jury is whether the accused is guilty of the crime of which he or she is accused, not whether he or she has been a bad girl or boy in the past.Next an individual police record including juvenile would be available to jury if the judge felt it was relevant.
And a "police record" does not demonstrate that anyone has ever been guilty of anything. Being arrested is not the same as -- indeed, it does not even resemble -- being convicted. I have been arrested on numerous occasions. I have never been convicted of anything (setting aside traffic infractions; I don't think that getting a few speeding tickets over my decades of driving makes me a career criminal). I have been arrested (a) for things which I, in fact, had not done and (b) for things which I had done but were, in fact, not crimes.
If I am accused of a crime, why should those arrests -- every one of which, again, resulted in my not being convicted of (and, in my case, not even being tried for) anything -- be paraded in front of the jury whose job it is to decide whether I am guilty of what I am accused of? It seems to me that the only reason to tell the jury that I have been arrested before is to encourage the jury to hand out a Tom-Sawyeresque verdict: "Well, he may not be guilty of this, but he's probably guilty of something." Is that really how we want to administer justice?
In the criminal justice system, we are trying -- as we ought to try -- to do two things at once: We are trying to ensure that those who are guilty of crimes are convicted of those crimes, and we are trying to ensure that those who are not guilty of crimes are acquitted of those crimes (or, even better, not charged with them in the first place). Most of the rules which we have in place and which are designed to ensure the conviction of the guilty carry with them some risk of convicting the innocent. And most of the rules which we have in place and which are designed to ensure the exoneration of the innocent carry with them some risk of exonerating the guilty.
We can tinker with those rules to improve the accuracy of their results. And we have been doing so for a long time. For example, we have been coping with the problem of hearsay evidence for centuries. Virtually everyone has heard of hearsay, but very few people -- if the number is even one out of fifty, I would be astonished -- can describe accurately what it actually is.
And I don't mean accurately describe all the permutations -- the exceptions to the hearsay rule, which exceptions always apply, which exceptions apply only sometimes, and all that. I mean just the basics: Forget about whether any exception to the hearsay rule applies; simply ask: "The witness says '[whatever]'. Is that testimony hearsay or not?" Again, if more than one out of fifty people could get it right (and say why it is or is not hearsay; people who come to either conclusion without knowing why might just as well be flipping coins), I would be astonished.
But even within the hearsay rule -- that is, even if the testimony is hearsay at all -- there are myriad exceptions to that rule. And some of the exceptions apply in all circumstances; others apply only in some circumstances.
One can look at that intricate web of complications and conclude that it sometimes produces the wrong results. And one would be right: Sometimes the outcome of all of those rules and rules-within-rules and rules-within-rules-within-rules is that testimony which should be admitted is excluded; other times the outcome is that testimony which should be excluded is admitted.
But the point is that the whole web of complications is the result of our struggling toward some set of rules that will maximize the likelihood of our arriving at the truth.* We decide not to admit hearsay testimony, because we see that it poses a high risk of leading a jury to a conclusion other than the truth. We limit the definition of what is hearsay, because we see that we have gone too far in one direction and thereby also risked leading a jury to a conclusion other than the truth. We create exceptions to the limited definition of hearsay, because we see that we have gone too far in the opposite direction and thereby also risked leading a jury to a conclusion other than the truth. We create limits on the applicability of the limited definition of hearsay, because we see that we have gone too far in the first direction and thereby again risked leading a jury to a conclusion other than the truth. We create exceptions to the limits on the applicability of the limited definition ....
All along the way, what we are struggling to do is come up with the set of rules -- after all, when the question for the judge is "Is the witness allowed to testify '[whatever]'?" there have to be some rules for the judge to follow in answering that question, unless we want the system to be that the judge can do whatever he or she pleases -- that best walks the tightrope between allowing testimony which will tend to lead the jury away from the truth and disallowing testimony that would have have tended to lead the jury toward the truth.
I'm not saying that we have done a bang-up job of it. But ignoring the complexities involved is not at all helpful.
We have not wrestled with these things -- and the hearsay rule (with its limitations, exceptions, exceptions to the exceptions, and so forth) is only one example of what we have been wrestling with -- for centuries in order to keep lawyers gainfully employed. We have been wrestling with them for centuries because every modification or set of modifications we make in order to solve one problem or set of problems raises another problem or set of problems. So we make another modification or set of modifications, and we confront another problem or set of problems. And on and on and on.
I doubt that we will ever come to the end of that process. I doubt that an end to that process even exists. The best we can hope for, it seems to me, is that the set of rules we have today gets us a bit closer to the mark than did the set of rules we had yesterday.
And sometimes we take steps backwards. We see ten cases in which the present set of rules has led to what we consider outrageous results, so we change the rules to avoid those results. And then the new rules lead to fifty cases in which we see what we consider outrageous results, so we change the rules back again. Or we come up with new rules.
We just keep mucking our way through, knowing that the odds of our coming up with a perfect set of rules are about the same as the odds of everyone's being nice to everyone else. We hope that at least the rules that we have today are less inadequate than the rules that we had yesterday or last year or last century. And all in all, I think that they are.
-------------------------
* Complicating matters further, even truth is only one of various competing goals. If the police had carte blanche to storm into anyone's house at any time without any justification, we would surely solve more crimes: Evidence that never would have been discovered under the rules we live by now would be discovered, and people who richly deserve punishment would get it.
But is that the kind of society in which we wish to live? We sometimes value freedom over truth; we sometimes value truth over freedom. And the balancing act in which we constantly engage on the question of freedom vs. truth is a macrocosm of the balancing act in which we constantly engage on the question of whether particular kinds of evidence are more likely to lead toward or away from truth.
Reason is valuable only when it performs against the wordless physical background of the universe.
-
Sue U
- Posts: 9089
- Joined: Thu Apr 15, 2010 4:59 pm
- Location: Eastern Megalopolis, North America (Midtown)
Re: A BS Smear Job
Oh fer crissakes, Andrew, don't be such a pessimist; for our current system, it hasn't even been 800 years since we've been at it seriously.Andrew D wrote:I doubt that we will ever come to the end of that process. I doubt that an end to that process even exists.
GAH!
Re: A BS Smear Job
This guy thinks that back to the future would be a good idea.
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Resolved QuestionShow me another »
Was Saxon justice harsh and superstitious?
i am looking for quite a bit of detail here.
All comments much appreciated
2 years ago
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by Aine G Member since:
05 January 2007
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Not so much as you might think. True they had trial by ordeal etc. but so did almost everyone else. Swearing of Oaths upon the relics of a saint was considered reliable which isn't really any different to our swearing upon the bible/Koran etc that our evidence shall be true.
As to trial by ordeal well we have the more updated version it's called trial by media.
As to it's being harsh, well, nowadays we send offenders to a holiday camp. Saxon punishment was more direct and perhaps more of a deterent as a result. I know which option would make me think twice about theft, prison or removal of the offendng limb, no contest really
2 years ago
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http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/in ... 605AAUvdLY
Resolved QuestionShow me another »
Was Saxon justice harsh and superstitious?
i am looking for quite a bit of detail here.
All comments much appreciated
2 years ago
Report Abuse
by Aine G Member since:
05 January 2007
Total points:
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Not so much as you might think. True they had trial by ordeal etc. but so did almost everyone else. Swearing of Oaths upon the relics of a saint was considered reliable which isn't really any different to our swearing upon the bible/Koran etc that our evidence shall be true.
As to trial by ordeal well we have the more updated version it's called trial by media.
As to it's being harsh, well, nowadays we send offenders to a holiday camp. Saxon punishment was more direct and perhaps more of a deterent as a result. I know which option would make me think twice about theft, prison or removal of the offendng limb, no contest really
2 years ago
Soon, I’ll post my farewell message. The end is starting to get close. There are many misconceptions about me, and before I go, to live with my ancestors on the steppes, I want to set the record straight.
Re: A BS Smear Job
The idea that the harsher the penalty the better the deterrent has been proven wrong. A greater certainty of punishment with a far lesser penalty has been shown to be the more effective deterrent.
yrs,
rubato
yrs,
rubato
Re: A BS Smear Job
The whole point of the rules of evidence is to get to the truth, and to weed out the possibly convincing but otherwise unsupported untruths.
“I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.” ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg, paraphrasing Sarah Moore Grimké
Re: A BS Smear Job
This thread started out as a discussion of politics and ended as one on the Law, dealing primarily with the courts.
I am inclined to continue this discussion by starting a new thread titled, “All Things Law“. It would be intended to generate exchanges on all things concerning law making, law enforcement and the courts.
I don’t know when I will be able to get around to this; it has been one crazy year since the beginning of the summer. At a time when there are people out of work I have so much work I am getting burned out. On top of that I have been trying to painting my house since the beginning of August and I sill don‘t have it all done. Now the weather is starting to get wetter making painting impractical; so maybe I will get around to it, but if anyone else would like to start it feel free.
I am inclined to continue this discussion by starting a new thread titled, “All Things Law“. It would be intended to generate exchanges on all things concerning law making, law enforcement and the courts.
I don’t know when I will be able to get around to this; it has been one crazy year since the beginning of the summer. At a time when there are people out of work I have so much work I am getting burned out. On top of that I have been trying to painting my house since the beginning of August and I sill don‘t have it all done. Now the weather is starting to get wetter making painting impractical; so maybe I will get around to it, but if anyone else would like to start it feel free.
Soon, I’ll post my farewell message. The end is starting to get close. There are many misconceptions about me, and before I go, to live with my ancestors on the steppes, I want to set the record straight.
-
oldr_n_wsr
- Posts: 10838
- Joined: Sun Apr 18, 2010 1:59 am
Re: A BS Smear Job
A common theme. People get let go and the survivors have to pick up the slack.At a time when there are people out of work I have so much work I am getting burned out.