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Charles Nesson Ruled Jointly Liable To Pay RIAA
eldavojohn writes "The highly anticipated Joel Tenenbaum trial ended in a disaster for Tenenbaum. But worse for his highly publicized lawyer, Charles Nesson, they are both liable for payment of the court's decision to the RIAA. Nesson's pro bono agreement with Tenenbaum may turn out to be a seriously expensive experiment for the Harvard Law Professor." As the Ars story points out, though, it's "some fees incurred by the RIAA during the trial" for which he'd be liable, not the whole judgment amount.
Don't want to get electrocuted, don't represent a murder.
And how does the one who is falsely accused of murder secure council in your hypothetical reality?
Defense lawyers don't defend their clients' crimes. They defend their clients' rights.
Mr Tenenbaum got what he paid for. You take a prominent lawyer/law person as a pro bono lawyer they come with an agenda. This can be good for you if their agenda is similar, but you do need to take it into account.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
His exact words were this:
I've long felt that lawyers should be subject to the same outcome as their client. Don't want to get electrocuted, don't represent a murder. Don't want to end up a million dollars in the hole? Don't represent a doctor who's clearly guilty of malpractice.
I've heard lots of ideas for improving the legal system... some of them have been really good, and some of them have been really bad. Of all those, this is the worst idea I've ever.
Even if all it does is prevent a lawyer from simply defending people who are "clearly" guilty (which it doesn't - and which in and of itself is a ridiculous idea - it is impossible by the laws of physics for there to be no doubt whatsoever that someone is guilty), it would still be an extremely bad idea.
The purpose of a lawyer varies depending on legal jurisdiction, but in general, a defense lawyer exists to ensure that someone who is accused of a crime doesn't get screwed over. A lawyer is there to help innocent people convince courts of their innocence, and to make sure a guilty person doesn't get a worse punishment than they deserve. Your proposal undermines both of these.
(This is why the US Constitution guarantees a lawyer wherever necessary, and why public defenders will be provided to people who can't afford their own lawyers.)
Consider the case of someone who is obviously innocent, but accused of a murder. Why should we force someone to risk their life to represent him?
Or even in a hypothetical dreamworld where the legal system is never wrong and no one innocent ever gets convicted: Consider someone who is obviously guilty of a lesser crime, let's say shoplifting, but has been accused of murder. Why should a lawyer have to take jailtime to help make sure that person doesn't get executed?
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Lawyers should defend all people to their best ability, it's not their job to determine the clients guilt. They are lawyers, not Judge and Jury. I think you are confused as to the nature of our legal system.
...a pro bono lawyer they come with an agenda.
He's trying to HELP the RIAA; that way kids will stop downloading that BOOM BOOM music with all those FILTHY lyrics and he'll finally get SOME SLEEP!
NOW GET OFF HIS LAWN!
Nesson must have been paid handsomely by the RIAA to throw the case and set a precedent favorable to the RIAA.
When you are shopping for a trial attorney do you chose:
A. The State U graduate who has spent a lifetime in the trenches.
Or
B. The Harvard Prof who hasn't seen action in fifteen years and arrives with the FSF and a German Om-Pa-Pa band in tow.
I disagree. The people who are "known" to be guilty are most in need of a good lawyer. Not because I relish the thought of murderers getting off on technicalities, but because murderers getting off on technicalities is the only way to motivate police officers and prosecutors to do their jobs properly and respect peoples' rights.
If somebody is "known" to be guilty then the only reason they should get off is police or prosecutorial misconduct, or it obviously wasn't as known as it sounded. If they get off based on that, then they should have. Sometimes guilty men have to go free to serve the greater concept of justice. That's frankly a much more important goal than punishing an individual defender, no matter how dangerous he is.
And that juries are filled with 12 people too stupid to get out of jury duty. True story-
My mom has always tried to lead by example, and has always been very civic minded, so when called for jury duty she took her vacation time and went. At the end of the trial she came in white faced and said "NEVER have a jury trial! Always demand a judge!" and when I asked her what had her spooked here is what she said. It was an arson case, the fire inspector couldn't even tell if the building had been set on fire or if it was a short, the guy didn't even have enough insurance to cover his losses and had to file for bankruptcy, so there wasn't even a motive. She hung the jury 11-1 in favor of conviction. Why were they gonna give this guy 10 years? "Because he is Italian and all of those people are in the mob and do things like that. Haven't you ever seen Goddfellas?"
That's right, that man's freedom was about to be taken away, not by the evidence, but by a Joe Pesci scene in a mob movie. There wasn't any arguing the evidence, they saw Goodfellas and Italians burn buildings, the end. So I would say we have a lot bigger problems than jury nullification, like juries that make idiocracy look like a fucking documentary.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
It'll succeed of Nesson decides to defend himself.
I took something else away from it too: the jury has the ultimate control over deciding whether a crime was committed. It can be illegal for you to chew gum, but it'll take a full jury to be willing to convict you. For example, in Michigan, it's a felony to commit adultery (750.30). I suppose adultery is about as common here as anywhere else, but guess how many people are tried for it... Juries are the reason draconian laws aren't enforced.
Unfortunately, that's no longer the case. US judges now instruct juries that nullification is illegal (i.e. that they can only judge the facts, not the law), and remove jurists who indicate that they are aware of their rights to nullify, or intend to exercise them.
The last barrier to abusive government is being dismantled. Which is why we now have an explosion in laws that many (most?) consider to be unjust - marijuana possession, non-commercial copyright infringement, etc.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face