You have no right to remain silent - anything you don't say may be held against you

Ah! I wasn't sure as to whether a reference to policemen testifying was being made by you or not. :)
 
My dad's a lawyer and my mom was one. T2, you're right that it's about creating whole frames of reality. Those frames come so full with prejudice tickling rhetoric and style that it's like, gross. But what's grosser is that the jury selection process forces that strategy. And the grossest is that people aren't educated to not get sucked into that, but are from day 1 indoctrinated to fall into it. Even critical thinkers.
 
Hygro said:
My dad's a lawyer and my mom was one. T2, you're right that it's about creating whole frames of reality. Those frames come so full with prejudice tickling rhetoric and style that it's like, gross. But what's grosser is that the jury selection process forces that strategy. And the grossest is that people aren't educated to not get sucked into that, but are from day 1 indoctrinated to fall into it. Even critical thinkers.
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We are a nation of law, and that's how it works. It is far from perfect, but probably better than what preceded it (open 'court' in front of the ruler where you said your piece and either got granted your wish or your head lopped off at his majesty's discretion). Certainly better for lawyers, at the very least.
 
Weren't Jim Crow laws penned by lawyers too? ;)
 
Timsup2nothin said:
The idea that a trial is about evidence is arguably false.

Two lawyers each try to create a coherent image of reality that can contain both the evidence and the outcome they are paid to include. Since they are paid to include mutually exclusive outcomes in their creations only one of them can succeed, and it is usually going to be the one who is best at his craft.
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Working from my three times serving on a jury (small sample set, I realize), I disagree with this. Both lawyers do try to create a coherent image of reality that jibes with the evidence. They're both perfectly crafty, but one of their accounts will feel like it's a strain, even to ordinary people. And its precisely the evidence that creates that sense of strain in the less plausible of the two narratives.
 
Gori the Grey said:
Working from my three times serving on a jury (small sample set, I realize), I disagree with this. Both lawyers do try to create a coherent image of reality that jibes with the evidence. They're both perfectly crafty, but one of their accounts will feel like it's a strain, even to ordinary people. And its precisely the evidence that creates that sense of strain in the less plausible of the two narratives.
Click to expand...

I'm not saying that some coherent realities aren't easier to craft than others. Crafting a reality that can contain thirty people who say they heard a gun go off and say they saw the defendant standing over the deceased with a gun in his hand and a wisp of smoke trailing from the barrel and also contain the defendant not being the killer may well be impossible.

But at the end of the day even the evidence is crafted. You the jury didn't personally experience anything regarding the crime. Witnesses are told to tell the truth, but carefully coached and rehearsed in how to tell it. Physical evidence is presented (hey it's a gun!) but the connection of that physical evidence is established by still more well coached witnesses (the gun was found in the defendant's hand by...well...someone and identified as the murder weapon by ballistics tests conducted by...well, another someone, etc). Each side crafts evidence that fits the reality they are constructing, and crafts explanations for how the evidence the other side has crafted will fit just as easily in their reality as it does in the one the other guy crafted it to fit.

They pretty much agree to leave out any evidence that doesn't fit well for either of them. Neither will bother presenting evidence that they know won't create any difficulty for the opposition. And neither side is concerned one wit for actual reality, just that their version can be more plausibly presented than the other side's can.
 
Timsup2nothin said:
We are a nation of law, and that's how it works. It is far from perfect, but probably better than what preceded it (open 'court' in front of the ruler where you said your piece and either got granted your wish or your head lopped off at his majesty's discretion). Certainly better for lawyers, at the very least.
Click to expand...
That's really not how Medieval English law worked. :undecide:
 
…and you are wrong anyway.
 
Timsup2nothin said:
I think medieval England was well on their way to being a nation of law. When I said 'system that preceded' I was looking further back.
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Anglo-Saxon law didn't work like that, either. Nor Danish law, nor Roman law, nor Brythonic law, nor Gaelic law. If anything, the further back you go, the more constrained rulers seem to be by custom and by popular opinion. What you seem to be describing is a situation in which magnates have gathered enough power to themselves to dispense justice arbitrarily, but neither local elites (who tend to be very specific about their customary rights) nor central authority (who tend to prefer bureaucratic uniformity) are in a position to stop them, which is going to have been the exception rather than any sort of rule.
 
Man, I already posted that in #133.
 
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