Why do they need real time transcription screens? Courts have operated for thousands of years without such devices just fine. They can always view the transcription later.
To anyone who actually understands how the Republican party operates, there is no irony because they are little more than two-faced hypocrites. They preach limited government but then try to regulate the bedroom, who can get abortions, who can get married and birth control. They preach freedom but use eminent domain to steal people's property (the Keystone Pipeline they are so fond of is built on stolen land) and funnel trillions of dollars into the military industrial complex so that more people can be bombed. They preach lower taxes but then raise taxes on everyone except the super-rich.
They (along with the Democrat party, which is the same shit but different rhetoric) are little more than corporate prostitutes who are available to the highest bidder. The stealerships in this case have more money combined than Tesla. So no, there is no irony because I expected nothing less from the Republican party than cronyist statism.
The Department of Homeland Security is nothing but a bunch of thugs. Having dealt with them before on customs, this is basically some government employee flexing their muscles because they like the power and have nothing better to do. The appropriate amount of boot-licking and obsequiousness (and tribute payment) is required in order to get it through.
If the UK is anything like the US, there is no case for trademark infringement merely because someone is selling a service and refers to the product they service. Nominative use of a trademark is generally considered fair use (e.g. it is generally legal for someone who is selling parts for Ford cards to say we sell Ford parts in their advertisements even if they aren't officially affiliated with Ford) provided you don't give the impression that you are officially sanctioned or affiliated with whoever owns the trademark.
UPS and FedEx drivers have been working 10-12+ hour days 6-7 days a week since Thanksgiving.
Your Christmas will not be ruined because of a late package unless you value some item or trinket over spending time with your family. First world problems indeed.
In other words, poor people are screwed because they can't afford to fork over hundreds of dollars to Verislime for a series of prime numbers. Not to mention the fact that the average user has no idea about PKI or how to get or install a certificate (Where I work, we deal with the GSA which requires certificates for authentication and it is a never-ending headache for users).
And in the end, the people who you most want to prevent from spying on you will be able to spy on you anyways because PKI presents a centralized target for governments and they can merely bludgeon the CAs into giving them the ability to intercept stuff.
Gas shortages could have been dealt with by eliminating "price gouging" laws (which really amounts to government theft of private property) and letting the price adjust for the lack of supply. It would have discouraged people from buying gas they didn't need (and where, pray tell, are you planning on driving to when no place has power and the roads are all closed).
The GNOME people have managed to invade several core projects such as udev and have been busy working to integrate them with GNOME. In addition, they are trying to push the GNOME-centric Wayland to replace X.
Removing middle click paste is just the latest example of their arrogance. The GNOME developers generally adopt the attitude that the user is an idiot who can't wipe their own ass without one of them to help. Anytime you complain about a removed feature you are either "using it wrong" or GNOME was "not designed for users who wish to do X". If they kept to their own little corner, I would not have as much of a problem but they are doing their damnedest to turn the entire Linux ecosystem into one giant mess without any regards for the UNIX philosophy or even compatibility with other *nix systems such as the BSDs.
I'm from the area and this case has been rather prominently featured on the news.
The district attorneys in this state are well known for their corruption and disregard for the rights of the accused and/or of the innocent. This trial is only taking place one county over from where Mike Nifong persued his witchhunt against the Duke Lacrosse players. In addition, the SBI has been implicated in a large scandal in which evidence was faked and mishandled.
Most people here do not believe he is guilty but rather that this is a sham case in which a misandristic government and court system automatically assumes that the husband must be the one who killed his wife.
The United States government is the largest criminal organization in the world. Bradley Manning exposed some of the war crimes routinely committed by the United States. That, in and of itself, makes him a hero. It takes no courage to invade another country that is drastically weaker than you are and to then shoot people (mostly civilians) who are simply defending their country from foreign invaders. It takes a lot of courage to stand up to the Imperial US Government.
The Zimmerman trial has been nothing short of a farce from the get go. It is reminiscent of Soviet-era show trials because the race baiters have turned this into a witch-hunt.
1.The original probable cause affidavit was so riddled with mistakes and inaccuracies that even a 1L (first year law student) wouldn't make such a mistake. To put speculations in an affidavit and then to swear, under of penalty of perjury, that they are facts is perpetrating fraud upon the court. Affidavits are not places where you speculate or state what your gut feeling is or what you think might have happened. It is a place to state facts. In addition, deliberately omitting evidence from the affidavit that is exculpatory in nature is unethical. Even Alan Dershowitz, who is about as left as you can get, blasted their handiwork.
2.The media has been doing their damnedest to make this about race. Every thing from inventing new terms, like white hispanic, to altering Zimmerman's photo to make him appear whiter and only showing pictures of Trayvon Martin when he was much younger to make him appear more angelic and innocent. In addition, they have been working tirelessly to plant the idea of having riots into peoples minds by continuously bringing it up.
3.The prosecution's entire side was a joke. I mean, Rachel Jeantel changed her story so many times that you would need an entire notebook to keep track of all of them. It was also painfully obvious that she had been coached by the prosecution. The other "witnesses" weren't much better.
4.There is no evidence for murder and the prosecution knows it. Even if the jury convicts (most likely, out of fear for their life or just plain idiocy since jurors are picked based on their emotional susceptibility rather than their intelligence), it will be overturned so fast on appeal that they won't even know what hit them. The case for manslaughter isn't much better and introducing that AFTER the defense has rested is highly unethical on the part of both the judge and the prosecution.
5.Speaking of the judge, she is a life long democrat and has demonstrated very clear evidence of bias. When George Zimmerman refused to testify, she disparaged and criticized him. A defendant has the right not to testify and it is highly unethical for a judge to browbeat a defendant for that because you are not allowed to make a negative inference from an exercise of the 5th amendment.
6.Now we get evidence that the prosecution is, once again, withholding exculpatory evidence. To go after the whistleblower, who blew the whistle on their unethical and illegal activities, just demonstrates how truly execrable the prosecution is.
Regardless of what you think of George Zimmerman, regardless of what you think of Trayvon Martin, regardless of who you think is to blame, regardless of whether you think George Zimmerman was racist, you should not be supporting such a mockery of justice. Everyone accused of a crime deserves their change to have a proper, fair, and just trial. This is nothing of the sort; it is a show trial and a political witch hunt.
Felony hit and run is a Class H Felony (http://www.nccourts.org/Courts/CRS/Councils/spac/Documents/FelonyChart_12_01_11MaxChart.pdf). With no priors, the maximum you can get is 8 months in prison.
Felony death by motor vehicle (any death from a motor vehicle that is the result of driving while impaired) is normally treated as involuntary manslaughter (Class F, 20 months max with no priors) but can be upgraded to second degree murder (Class B1, 300 months for no prior offense) if there are aggravating circumstances (e.g. a prior history of DWI).
DWI laws in this state are a joke. And when they finally get banned from driving a car (after half a dozen convictions or so), they are still allowed to go and drive a moped on the road.
Amongst other things, judges base sentences on the defendants remorse, or lack thereof, as well as their prior criminal history, motivations, and how likely they are to re-offend. This is not an anti-liberty position for his speech was never restricted; no one stopped him from being an idiot on Reddit and he is not being charged with a crime or harassed for what he said. But the judge absolutely has every right to use that when determining whether he is likely to offend (I needn't remind you about the bit that says anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law).
The rest of your argument was nullified by Marbury vs. Madison. You may wish to read up on judicial review and how it is the courts job to interpret the constitution.
The problem is, that simply isn't how it works and it has never worked that way.
For example, there is something called the reasonable time and place restriction. If you try to hold a protest in front of the White House at 2am in the morning, you absolutely will be forced away by the police and them doing such is perfectly constitutional. The same goes for a courtroom; you cannot act out in court. If you disagree with a judge, the appropriate process is to appeal that decision. And, furthermore, things you say can be used against you in court (Look up Miranda Warning).
Both. What AT&T did was stupid and inexcusable from a security standpoint but that doesn't make exploiting it right. As I said, I would have more sympathy if he were a legitimate security researcher who tried to go through the proper channels. As it stands, he is nothing but a troll that has devoted his entire life to making other people miserable and he finally trolled one person too many.
You have the right to free speech. That doesn't mean you have immunity from the consequences of your speech. If you go around telling everyone, during sentencing, that you are going to go and commit the same crime again (regardless of whether you agree it should be a crime or not), the judge is absolutely going to take that into account during sentencing because it indicates a high probability that the person will do the same thing again.
He manipulated URLs to access areas that were not publicly visible. The information that he gleaned by manipulating these URLs was information that any reasonable person would deduce as information AT&T did not intent to make public. Rather than informing AT&T about the vulnerability, he went to Gawker and leaked the information that he gained, victimizing all of those people in the process. Just because someone leaves a door unlocked or open does not give you the right to go in and steal stuff and this is no different. Mens rea is *everything* here; if he had just gone to AT&T or acted responsibly in the disclosure, rather than trolling, he would most likely have never been charged.
As far as the prison sentence goes, he brought that on himself as well. It is *beyond* stupid to swear at a federal judge and call her a "mean bitch" when she is the one that is sentencing you. It is *beyond* stupid to go on a public forum and post that you intent to commit the same crimes again once you get out of prison. Do not complain when you get the book thrown at you after you try to turn the courtroom and the trial into a three-ring circus. Trolling a federal judge is never a good idea.
There is also the matter of his past history. I have not forgotten about what he did to Kathy Sierra or the other women that he made rape threats against. Or the "GNAA". His entire life has been dedicated to griefing people and generally being an asshole and yeah, the judge is going to look at that.
Obama has openly admitting to planning to arm Al-Queda associated rebels in Syria. That is the DEFINITION of treason. Edward Snowden has not given anyone weapons. He has merely aired Obama's dirty laundry. If this country was run by the people rather than a bunch of plutocrats, Obama, Bush, Cheney, et. al would be on trial for crimes against humanity.
How people voted for this guy is beyond me. I knew Obama was a liar from day one. Democrats and republicans work for the same causes and the same people; any perceived differences are merely staged for the benefit of the American voters and never go deeper than the surface. It is classic divide and conquer and the end result is that this country is effectively run by a two-party dictatorship that stays in power by manipulating and rigging the elections to exclude competition and creating staged conflicts on trivial issues like gay marriage (which *IS* a trivial issue compared to the fact that this country is descending into a police state). When it comes to the things that matter, both parties act in lockstep and it is NOT to the benefit of the American people or to the cause of freedom. The only people the Republicrat party answers to is their corporate masters.
That's all well and good as long as you know how to "determine" fairness and justice. US courts are set up in such a way to deliberately obfuscate the law.
Federal courts in the US are a mess. There are entire books worth of byzantine rules that even the lawyers have trouble understanding. To make matters worse, each of the federal districts has their own local rules as well (because every federal district court needs it's own rules for what font size motions should be in...).
Pro se parties are routinely discriminated against. Lawyers essentially have unlimited power to issue subpoenas; the US is one of the only countries that allows lawyers to do this with no oversight. Pro se parties cannot do this. The clerks of court will go out of their way to answer questions about the law to lawyers (again, even they can't keep track of all of the rules) but will refuse to answer any questions for pro se parties.
In addition, the salaries of lawyers are artificially inflated through the cartel known as the bar. The amount of lawyers is artificially restricted by the state through economic rent seeking. Even offering your opinion on something related to the law can subject you to the imposition of violent force by the state on behalf of the bar (Free speech doesn't apply to non-lawyers). Since judges are members of this cartel, and judges are lawyers themselves, they will never rule such a thing illegal even if it is.
If that doesn't get you, case law will. Lawyers have access to tools like LexisNexus which allow them to figure out WHAT the case law is and what cases have been overturned and such. The average person can't afford that and has to resort to inferior tools.
It is criminal to have a system where someone with millions of dollars can simply use the state and its courts as a means to steal money from people simply because they can't afford to fight it. It is criminal to have a system where shysters can issue one subpoena after another without needing any sort of approval. It is criminal to have a system where someone is subject to violence because they offered legal advice to the less fortunate simply because they haven't paid money into the bar racket.
As far as I'm concerned, US Courts no longer have any legitimacy. They are a joke and should be treated as such. So help me if I'm called for jury slavery because I would be the juror from hell.
The adversarial system is the biggest injustice ever created. Such a system dates back from the times when people solved disputes by beating each other over the head with clubs. The US legal system literally derives from the law of Germanic tribes back in antiquity.
The adversarial system turns everything into a game. Fact is irrelevant. Law is irrelevant. Justice is irrelevant. All that matters is whose lawyer is the best at legal gamesmenship. A typical civil trial in the US is a game of trying to bury the other party in motions and frivolous lawsuits until they can no longer afford to fight it. The adversarial system ensures that no help is given to a party who has a significant financial disadvantage because the law is simply not important and if you can't afford a good lawyer, that's too bad and you're going to go bankrupt even if you've done nothing wrong.
Civilized countries (e.g. the majority) realized a long time ago that the adversarial system is not just. In most countries, the inquisitorial system is used in which the judge, rather than the lawyers, are the ones who do the investigating and asking of questions. In an inquisitorial court, it is not a competition to see which party has the best lawyers and legal arguments but rather a search for the truth.
Slashdot Mirror
Why do they need real time transcription screens? Courts have operated for thousands of years without such devices just fine. They can always view the transcription later.
To anyone who actually understands how the Republican party operates, there is no irony because they are little more than two-faced hypocrites. They preach limited government but then try to regulate the bedroom, who can get abortions, who can get married and birth control. They preach freedom but use eminent domain to steal people's property (the Keystone Pipeline they are so fond of is built on stolen land) and funnel trillions of dollars into the military industrial complex so that more people can be bombed. They preach lower taxes but then raise taxes on everyone except the super-rich.
They (along with the Democrat party, which is the same shit but different rhetoric) are little more than corporate prostitutes who are available to the highest bidder. The stealerships in this case have more money combined than Tesla. So no, there is no irony because I expected nothing less from the Republican party than cronyist statism.
The Department of Homeland Security is nothing but a bunch of thugs. Having dealt with them before on customs, this is basically some government employee flexing their muscles because they like the power and have nothing better to do. The appropriate amount of boot-licking and obsequiousness (and tribute payment) is required in order to get it through.
If the UK is anything like the US, there is no case for trademark infringement merely because someone is selling a service and refers to the product they service. Nominative use of a trademark is generally considered fair use (e.g. it is generally legal for someone who is selling parts for Ford cards to say we sell Ford parts in their advertisements even if they aren't officially affiliated with Ford) provided you don't give the impression that you are officially sanctioned or affiliated with whoever owns the trademark.
UPS and FedEx drivers have been working 10-12+ hour days 6-7 days a week since Thanksgiving.
Your Christmas will not be ruined because of a late package unless you value some item or trinket over spending time with your family. First world problems indeed.
In other words, poor people are screwed because they can't afford to fork over hundreds of dollars to Verislime for a series of prime numbers. Not to mention the fact that the average user has no idea about PKI or how to get or install a certificate (Where I work, we deal with the GSA which requires certificates for authentication and it is a never-ending headache for users).
And in the end, the people who you most want to prevent from spying on you will be able to spy on you anyways because PKI presents a centralized target for governments and they can merely bludgeon the CAs into giving them the ability to intercept stuff.
There was flooding with Floyd. Massive flooding.
Gas shortages could have been dealt with by eliminating "price gouging" laws (which really amounts to government theft of private property) and letting the price adjust for the lack of supply. It would have discouraged people from buying gas they didn't need (and where, pray tell, are you planning on driving to when no place has power and the roads are all closed).
Yes.
Google "client side window decorations".
No, they are breaking Linux.
The GNOME people have managed to invade several core projects such as udev and have been busy working to integrate them with GNOME. In addition, they are trying to push the GNOME-centric Wayland to replace X.
Removing middle click paste is just the latest example of their arrogance. The GNOME developers generally adopt the attitude that the user is an idiot who can't wipe their own ass without one of them to help. Anytime you complain about a removed feature you are either "using it wrong" or GNOME was "not designed for users who wish to do X". If they kept to their own little corner, I would not have as much of a problem but they are doing their damnedest to turn the entire Linux ecosystem into one giant mess without any regards for the UNIX philosophy or even compatibility with other *nix systems such as the BSDs.
I'm from the area and this case has been rather prominently featured on the news.
The district attorneys in this state are well known for their corruption and disregard for the rights of the accused and/or of the innocent. This trial is only taking place one county over from where Mike Nifong persued his witchhunt against the Duke Lacrosse players. In addition, the SBI has been implicated in a large scandal in which evidence was faked and mishandled.
Most people here do not believe he is guilty but rather that this is a sham case in which a misandristic government and court system automatically assumes that the husband must be the one who killed his wife.
Obama is nothing but Bush in blackface. It is amazing how many people give him a pass because he is black and has a D besides his name.
What is even more laughable is the Nobel Peace Prize that was given to him.
The United States government is the largest criminal organization in the world. Bradley Manning exposed some of the war crimes routinely committed by the United States. That, in and of itself, makes him a hero. It takes no courage to invade another country that is drastically weaker than you are and to then shoot people (mostly civilians) who are simply defending their country from foreign invaders. It takes a lot of courage to stand up to the Imperial US Government.
The Zimmerman trial has been nothing short of a farce from the get go. It is reminiscent of Soviet-era show trials because the race baiters have turned this into a witch-hunt.
1.The original probable cause affidavit was so riddled with mistakes and inaccuracies that even a 1L (first year law student) wouldn't make such a mistake. To put speculations in an affidavit and then to swear, under of penalty of perjury, that they are facts is perpetrating fraud upon the court. Affidavits are not places where you speculate or state what your gut feeling is or what you think might have happened. It is a place to state facts. In addition, deliberately omitting evidence from the affidavit that is exculpatory in nature is unethical. Even Alan Dershowitz, who is about as left as you can get, blasted their handiwork.
2.The media has been doing their damnedest to make this about race. Every thing from inventing new terms, like white hispanic, to altering Zimmerman's photo to make him appear whiter and only showing pictures of Trayvon Martin when he was much younger to make him appear more angelic and innocent. In addition, they have been working tirelessly to plant the idea of having riots into peoples minds by continuously bringing it up.
3.The prosecution's entire side was a joke. I mean, Rachel Jeantel changed her story so many times that you would need an entire notebook to keep track of all of them. It was also painfully obvious that she had been coached by the prosecution. The other "witnesses" weren't much better.
4.There is no evidence for murder and the prosecution knows it. Even if the jury convicts (most likely, out of fear for their life or just plain idiocy since jurors are picked based on their emotional susceptibility rather than their intelligence), it will be overturned so fast on appeal that they won't even know what hit them. The case for manslaughter isn't much better and introducing that AFTER the defense has rested is highly unethical on the part of both the judge and the prosecution.
5.Speaking of the judge, she is a life long democrat and has demonstrated very clear evidence of bias. When George Zimmerman refused to testify, she disparaged and criticized him. A defendant has the right not to testify and it is highly unethical for a judge to browbeat a defendant for that because you are not allowed to make a negative inference from an exercise of the 5th amendment.
6.Now we get evidence that the prosecution is, once again, withholding exculpatory evidence. To go after the whistleblower, who blew the whistle on their unethical and illegal activities, just demonstrates how truly execrable the prosecution is.
Regardless of what you think of George Zimmerman, regardless of what you think of Trayvon Martin, regardless of who you think is to blame, regardless of whether you think George Zimmerman was racist, you should not be supporting such a mockery of justice. Everyone accused of a crime deserves their change to have a proper, fair, and just trial. This is nothing of the sort; it is a show trial and a political witch hunt.
North Carolina is one of those places.
Felony hit and run is a Class H Felony (http://www.nccourts.org/Courts/CRS/Councils/spac/Documents/FelonyChart_12_01_11MaxChart.pdf). With no priors, the maximum you can get is 8 months in prison.
Felony death by motor vehicle (any death from a motor vehicle that is the result of driving while impaired) is normally treated as involuntary manslaughter (Class F, 20 months max with no priors) but can be upgraded to second degree murder (Class B1, 300 months for no prior offense) if there are aggravating circumstances (e.g. a prior history of DWI).
He already has a DWI.
http://www1.aoc.state.nc.us/www/calendars.Offense.do?submit=submit&case=3102012061874&court=CR
DWI laws in this state are a joke. And when they finally get banned from driving a car (after half a dozen convictions or so), they are still allowed to go and drive a moped on the road.
Amongst other things, judges base sentences on the defendants remorse, or lack thereof, as well as their prior criminal history, motivations, and how likely they are to re-offend. This is not an anti-liberty position for his speech was never restricted; no one stopped him from being an idiot on Reddit and he is not being charged with a crime or harassed for what he said. But the judge absolutely has every right to use that when determining whether he is likely to offend (I needn't remind you about the bit that says anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law).
The rest of your argument was nullified by Marbury vs. Madison. You may wish to read up on judicial review and how it is the courts job to interpret the constitution.
Citation? No problem.
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Time,+Place,+and+Manner+Restrictions
The problem is, that simply isn't how it works and it has never worked that way.
For example, there is something called the reasonable time and place restriction. If you try to hold a protest in front of the White House at 2am in the morning, you absolutely will be forced away by the police and them doing such is perfectly constitutional. The same goes for a courtroom; you cannot act out in court. If you disagree with a judge, the appropriate process is to appeal that decision. And, furthermore, things you say can be used against you in court (Look up Miranda Warning).
Yes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03trolls-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Both. What AT&T did was stupid and inexcusable from a security standpoint but that doesn't make exploiting it right. As I said, I would have more sympathy if he were a legitimate security researcher who tried to go through the proper channels. As it stands, he is nothing but a troll that has devoted his entire life to making other people miserable and he finally trolled one person too many.
You have the right to free speech. That doesn't mean you have immunity from the consequences of your speech. If you go around telling everyone, during sentencing, that you are going to go and commit the same crime again (regardless of whether you agree it should be a crime or not), the judge is absolutely going to take that into account during sentencing because it indicates a high probability that the person will do the same thing again.
I'm finding trouble having sympathy for this guy.
He manipulated URLs to access areas that were not publicly visible. The information that he gleaned by manipulating these URLs was information that any reasonable person would deduce as information AT&T did not intent to make public. Rather than informing AT&T about the vulnerability, he went to Gawker and leaked the information that he gained, victimizing all of those people in the process. Just because someone leaves a door unlocked or open does not give you the right to go in and steal stuff and this is no different. Mens rea is *everything* here; if he had just gone to AT&T or acted responsibly in the disclosure, rather than trolling, he would most likely have never been charged.
As far as the prison sentence goes, he brought that on himself as well. It is *beyond* stupid to swear at a federal judge and call her a "mean bitch" when she is the one that is sentencing you. It is *beyond* stupid to go on a public forum and post that you intent to commit the same crimes again once you get out of prison. Do not complain when you get the book thrown at you after you try to turn the courtroom and the trial into a three-ring circus. Trolling a federal judge is never a good idea.
There is also the matter of his past history. I have not forgotten about what he did to Kathy Sierra or the other women that he made rape threats against. Or the "GNAA". His entire life has been dedicated to griefing people and generally being an asshole and yeah, the judge is going to look at that.
Obama has openly admitting to planning to arm Al-Queda associated rebels in Syria. That is the DEFINITION of treason. Edward Snowden has not given anyone weapons. He has merely aired Obama's dirty laundry. If this country was run by the people rather than a bunch of plutocrats, Obama, Bush, Cheney, et. al would be on trial for crimes against humanity.
How people voted for this guy is beyond me. I knew Obama was a liar from day one. Democrats and republicans work for the same causes and the same people; any perceived differences are merely staged for the benefit of the American voters and never go deeper than the surface. It is classic divide and conquer and the end result is that this country is effectively run by a two-party dictatorship that stays in power by manipulating and rigging the elections to exclude competition and creating staged conflicts on trivial issues like gay marriage (which *IS* a trivial issue compared to the fact that this country is descending into a police state). When it comes to the things that matter, both parties act in lockstep and it is NOT to the benefit of the American people or to the cause of freedom. The only people the Republicrat party answers to is their corporate masters.
That's all well and good as long as you know how to "determine" fairness and justice. US courts are set up in such a way to deliberately obfuscate the law.
Federal courts in the US are a mess. There are entire books worth of byzantine rules that even the lawyers have trouble understanding. To make matters worse, each of the federal districts has their own local rules as well (because every federal district court needs it's own rules for what font size motions should be in...).
Pro se parties are routinely discriminated against. Lawyers essentially have unlimited power to issue subpoenas; the US is one of the only countries that allows lawyers to do this with no oversight. Pro se parties cannot do this. The clerks of court will go out of their way to answer questions about the law to lawyers (again, even they can't keep track of all of the rules) but will refuse to answer any questions for pro se parties.
In addition, the salaries of lawyers are artificially inflated through the cartel known as the bar. The amount of lawyers is artificially restricted by the state through economic rent seeking. Even offering your opinion on something related to the law can subject you to the imposition of violent force by the state on behalf of the bar (Free speech doesn't apply to non-lawyers). Since judges are members of this cartel, and judges are lawyers themselves, they will never rule such a thing illegal even if it is.
If that doesn't get you, case law will. Lawyers have access to tools like LexisNexus which allow them to figure out WHAT the case law is and what cases have been overturned and such. The average person can't afford that and has to resort to inferior tools.
It is criminal to have a system where someone with millions of dollars can simply use the state and its courts as a means to steal money from people simply because they can't afford to fight it. It is criminal to have a system where shysters can issue one subpoena after another without needing any sort of approval. It is criminal to have a system where someone is subject to violence because they offered legal advice to the less fortunate simply because they haven't paid money into the bar racket.
As far as I'm concerned, US Courts no longer have any legitimacy. They are a joke and should be treated as such. So help me if I'm called for jury slavery because I would be the juror from hell.
The adversarial system is the biggest injustice ever created. Such a system dates back from the times when people solved disputes by beating each other over the head with clubs. The US legal system literally derives from the law of Germanic tribes back in antiquity.
The adversarial system turns everything into a game. Fact is irrelevant. Law is irrelevant. Justice is irrelevant. All that matters is whose lawyer is the best at legal gamesmenship. A typical civil trial in the US is a game of trying to bury the other party in motions and frivolous lawsuits until they can no longer afford to fight it. The adversarial system ensures that no help is given to a party who has a significant financial disadvantage because the law is simply not important and if you can't afford a good lawyer, that's too bad and you're going to go bankrupt even if you've done nothing wrong.
Civilized countries (e.g. the majority) realized a long time ago that the adversarial system is not just. In most countries, the inquisitorial system is used in which the judge, rather than the lawyers, are the ones who do the investigating and asking of questions. In an inquisitorial court, it is not a competition to see which party has the best lawyers and legal arguments but rather a search for the truth.