h a l f b a k e r yA few slices short of a loaf.
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If a criminal happens to be very rich, they can employ a very good lawyer and get a much reduced sentence for a crime he/she did, or maybe even get off the hook completely.
If an innocent person happens to be not so rich, and has to depend on legal if they're wrongly accused, he/she could end up going
down for a crime they didn't comitt.
What I propose is that every lawyer/barrister/etc. is employed by an independant body, and are put into a league table of sorts. Said table could be decided by experience, past results, quality of law degree among other things.
Before a trial the defendant and the prosecution are assigned legal representation of a similar league placing. Therefore both cases will be argued for equally well and (hopefully) the trial will be trully fair.
No requirement that Defense council be awake.
http://www.cdinet.d....co.uk/cca-brig.htm
Under that heading (scroll down) A lawyer slept through defense of his client in a trial with the death penalty as a possible (and I think eventual) outcome. [Zimmy, May 28 2005]
[link]
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I bunned this just for the effort. I don't think this would really work(what [Pa've] said). And neither does the current U.S. system for the reasons you give. How to arrive at a fair justice system? I have no idea. |
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I once posted an idea for Matched Legal Costs - where the
idea was that any money spent on the case by either side
is actually shared between the two. The intent was to
equalise the clear advantage that the wealthy have in
the arena of law, but the problems outnumbered the
advantages. |
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[scout] the last line of your anno is pointlessly and provocatively inflammatory. Lose it. |
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[Pa`ve] has a perfectly legitimate point (Edit: before he went and deleted his account). If for example, there was only one particularly good lawyer in a particularly specialised field, there would be no way for him or her to represent anyone, as it would give that person an advantage. Then he/she would make no money. Therefore there would be no reason for a lawyer to try and distinguish themselves and all would attempt to appear mediocre.
Applying communist ideals will not work on any major government function of a capitalist country. |
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[Zeno] your question is mostly rhetorical. Justice and the legal system are often mutually exclusive. |
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Been bitten by a lawyer recently, [MadDog]? |
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Just hope you can afford better than John Benn or Joe Frank Cannon, who apparently sleep at their council's trials. |
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Or even better, trial by ordeal. |
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I think lawyers should be made to look foolish by wearing a different ludicrous costume every time they appear in court. They should also have to walk to work, wearing said ludicrous costume.
No real reason, I just think it'd be funny. Other than that, what [hidden] and [Pa've] said. |
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How about: lawyers are chosen by both
sides but then the flip of a judicial coin
decides which lawyer represents which
side?
[edit] bugger. Just saw
'council swap toss' from 2001. Beaten
to it. |
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[moomintroll] //I think lawyers should
be made to look foolish by wearing a
different ludicrous costume every time
they appear in court.//
Is the
current ludicrous costume insufficiently
ludicrous, or insufficiently varied? |
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was Lawschool not ordeal enough? I've heard of pages being cut out of library texts so as not to be used by competitors. |
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99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name. |
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I guess you don't live in a part of the world where the dream is to sue you to death, [Mad Dog] ... or you'd want the best representation you could buy. Now if an attorney who just pocketed several millions of dollars for a client suing someone who made their kids' skin red from tomato fungicide spray were to be required to represent clients who were facing suits until the attorney's clients were to lose an equivalent several millions of dollars, I'd say some lawyers would buy into the scheme. |
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"Oh, your client's on easy street from a slip and fall? What are you doing now?"
"Defending businesses against wrongful termination suits." |
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//every lawyer/barrister/etc. is employed by the state//
Bad idea. In a criminal trial you're being prosecuted by the state. I don't think that I'd sleep very well at night knowing that my legal representative works for the opposition. |
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Good point [hidden truths], but a sliding scale of pay could be introduced, meaning that there would still be a financial incentive for being at the top of the profession. |
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I've changed the wording slightly to make my idea clearer [DrBob], and I'm confident that said independant body would remain separate from The Crown Prosecution Service. |
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[moomintroll], take a look at the link if you want an abstract courtroom. |
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So the CPS would hire out lawyers from this independant body? Or would two random lawyers be given the facts of the case and expected to take one of the jobs? |
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In the scheme of things, in this country at least, miss-carraiges of justice are very rare. They are mostly seen in high-profile cases where the police are under-pressure to find a culprit. Such cases are rare and surprisingly few of them rely on government funded lawyers. |
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There's a difference between what is recognised as a
miscarriage of justice and the blatant inequity that exists
in the legal arena. Dragging a trial out to some
unbearable length of time by exploiting technicalities is a
luxury that can only be afforded by the wealthy, and
forces the poorer party to settle or drop the case
completely. It is certainly not a miscarriage of justice, in
the legal sense. |
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//Before a trial the defendant and the prosecution are assigned legal representation of a similar league placing. Therefore both cases will be argued for equally well //
Or equally badly. |
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Lawyer and a horse walk into a bar.
Barkeep says, "Is this a joke?" |
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At least it's equal, which is much better then one side argued averagely, and the other side brilliently |
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It's also the physical appearance of the defendant that influences the jury. Perhaps poor Black defendants could choose optionally to attend their trial by television, while a rich-looking White guy sits at the table and pretends to be the defendant (unbeknownst to the jury). |
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[wouldn't work if defendant needs to be called to the stand or if an eyewitness describes the defendant]. Or, more pathologically, maybe it *would* still work. |
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