Wednesday, May 26, 2010

The Sanity Clause

Here is a novel strategy to make it illegal to defend your client.

Oh well. As my uncle is fond of observing, all defendants are guilty . . . just not necessarily of what they've been accused of.

Posted by IOZ at 9:57 AM | email »
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21 comments:

Anonymous said...

damn lawyers always "interfering with the operation" of our gulags. well, not always, i guess.

10:27 AM
la Rana said...

bring it fuckers.

this is a bit like poking a bear until it finally bites you, whereupon everyone realizes that you were right to say that keeping wildlife, for uh, domestic, aint legal either.

this will either end with us putting her down . . . or her breaking free from her cage and rampaging through the neighborhood killing everyone.

10:55 AM
Anonymous said...

I think you meant, "The Hannity Clause".

10:58 AM
Inkberrow said...

Change The Playing Field is a tried & true government gambit when the stakes are high enough. They'd never have convicted the Teflon Don if they hadn't cobbled together a specious Unindicted Co-Conspirator tag for attorney Bruce Cutler, thereby preventing Cutler from continuing to defend Gotti.



Anon @ 10:27---

In view of the sheer scope and murderous nature of what Solzhenitsyn chronicled, and in view of China's innumerable, functionally anonymous political prisoners today, your use of "gulag" here even for rhetorical purposes is colossally inapt to the point of irresponsibility. De rigeur at undergraduate social gatherings, I imagine....

11:08 AM
Walter Wit Man said...

Sounds very similar to the recent bankruptcy opinion written by Sotomayor. In that case (Milavetz), the court held that a debtor's lawyer may not give advice to his client to incur further debt in anticipation of filing for bankruptcy--even if that action would be perfectly legal and beneficial to the client. Of course, lawyers for business debtors like the To Big To Fail banks don't have the same restrictions.

11:20 AM
Anonymous said...

the worst part about it is that these tribunals are kangaroo courts with weird rules of procedure, so if you're doing this shit pro bono you're especially fuckt

11:51 AM
Gekkou said...

Yeah, I had to stop reading at the point that Rep. Moron (Flordia-R) said "the effort [to identify witnesses to torture!]was “disloyal” and illegal." I felt my brain melting at that point.

Why is it I get the feeling that the Communist argument that you can't have Fascism without it being a reaction to radical leftism (since we have none in the US) may not exactly be correct.

Fucking Ugh.

12:28 PM
Anonymous said...

Inkberrow - how about Diet Gulags: Now with lower numbers than the Commies!

1:35 PM
Professor Coldheart said...

Inkberrow's got a point. "Gulag Archipelago" is a better metaphor for America's vast, known prison population - the millions of people the U.S. imprisons within its borders. As for those who've been swept off the books at Guantanamo or Baghram? Camus's "little-ease" might be more appropriate.

(how's that for undergrad?)

1:39 PM
Inkberrow said...

Professor Coldheart---

I must assume your areas of professorial expertise do not overlap with a rudimentary understanding of what constitutes a "political" prisoner. Folks like Solzhenitsyn didn't pass through the Lubyanka for knocking over convenience stores and selling cocaine. Or are you perhaps Reverend Sharpton's pasty-faced ghostwriter?


Anon @ 1:35---

At most we have a Gulag substitute, a la gardenburgers or tofu. Admittedly, we have fewer free-range and cage-free specimens.

4:48 PM
Anonymous said...

Yeah, but client costs would go down. Big picture, folks.

6:49 PM
Anonymous said...

meanwhile josh marshall is worried about blow jobs.

11:28 PM
TGGP said...

According to some commenter on the internet a few years ago in California lawyers have been held liable for correctly stating the law. I think that's step 1.a in "First, kill all the lawyers".

1:39 AM
Professor Coldheart said...

Oh, shit! My "areas of political expertise"! Name-checking Al Sharpton! THE DUDE HAS GOT NO MERCY!

8:52 AM
Anonymous said...

Now, now, just to address some nonsense posted above.

The Gulag system served two purposes - instill obedience to the Soviet State in the populace, and create cheap labor resource for the Soviet State.

Resemblance with the War-on-Drugs' premise of controlling private behavior, and War-on-Drugs' profiteering are not accidental.

Rather the Gulag and the USA stratified prison complex belong to the same category of the homo homini lupus spectrum.

Capt'n Obvious

9:49 AM
stras said...

HOOOOOOOOOPE!

10:19 AM
Inkberrow said...

Professor Coldheart---

You'll find that "political" and "professorial" are different words. I'm beginning to doubt your academic credentials altogether. Regardless, we may assume that your degree is not in Reading Comprehension. Or Wit.


Anon @ 9:49---

Apples and oranges. Without Prohibition there would be no War on Drugs, and Prohibition was hardly the brainchild of profiteers. The Soviet Gulags crushed political dissent and assuaged Stalin's rampant personal paranoia; American prisons help employ law enforcement officers and bureaucrats with health care and pensions. Oh, and warehouse rapists and murderers....

11:29 AM
Professor Coldheart said...

Inkberrow: "Regardless, we may assume that your degree is not in Reading Comprehension. Or Wit."

Ron Jaworski: "Professor Coldheart? You got JACKED! UP!"

2:12 PM
Coldtype said...

Inky strikes out yet again. The overwhelming majority of US prisoners (we're #1 yeah!) are incarcerated for non-violent drug related offenses.

7:24 PM
Inkberrow said...

Coldtype---

.....which in no way refutes anything I've said here, assuming your rather squishy assertions manage to gel. I'm not the one that conflated political prisoners with common criminals. "Overwhelming majority" is what, exactly, and according to whom? "Drug-related" includes....a pre-flash 'n fondle bong hit? Car or identity theft to support a crack habit? Why exclude violent crimes, then? It's all The (Money) Man in operation, eh?

8:38 PM
TGGP said...

"As my uncle is fond of observing, all defendants are guilty . . . just not necessarily of what they've been accused of."
It seems Robin Hanson agrees.

11:10 PM

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