> A common denominator is the only way to make things fair.
This is how you destroy civilizations. The Soviet Union and Cuba come to mind as places that tried to make society more fair by equally distributing poverty and oppression. You make society better by pulling the bottom up, not by pushing the top down.
That's ridiculous. I never said "limit both sides to a budget of $10." I said same, or same-ish. Eliminating the massive disparity in justice that unlimited money can buy you is not going to "destroy civilization", and I don't have much respect for people who have to use hyperbolic threats of catastrophe to try and scare people away from a point.
Lawyer A is the best Lawyer in the country. He is forced to be a "salaried employee of the state". Who do you think 'gets assigned' to his representation list - a wealthy person or a poor person?
Your solution works if all lawyers are the same OR if the whole system is clean of corruption. First is impossible, second is impossible.
If you start thinking "we can make assignments fair/automated/etc." you already lost because the argument just switches to "who manages the control of assignment's fairness".
Who watches the watchmen? The answer is: no one. The world is not fair. Deal with it.
Nobody says "stop trying to make it more fair". But stop trying to
force fairness.
Side A picks a pair. Side B picks the representation. Both lawyers are equally mediocre.
Side A's lawyer gets the materials analysis/arguments/speeches written by "Lawyer A", best in the country, now retired and working as the consultant.
Do you know why "Layer A" is working as a consultant (for $$$) and the representation lawyers are mediocre mouthpieces? Easy: as soon as Lawyer A distinguished himself in a court a few times, nobody picked him as a part of the pair at the first stage anymore (out of fear of loosing him at the second stage of selection).
There are rules governing ethics for legal professionals. Those who break the rules risk their careers. This seems like a problem that could be addressed, or at least drastically mitigated.
I'm not saying that a solution rattled off the cuff in a forum on HN is what should be enshrined in law. But there's a reason everyone agrees Citizen's United is an insult to democracy. And we have the exact same problem in place in our courts, and that's an insult to justice. Unlimited money buys results. That's fucked up, and you'll never convince me otherwise.
My thesis is: unlimited money will always buy results. Money is a shadow of power and the point of power is influencing the world. Your solution of "reducing things to a common denominator" which you claimed to be "the only fair thing" will only make the application of power indirect.
FWIW I think the gradual curbing of the limits of power and hoping for human nature changing (or an alien invasion) is the way to go.
I didn't actually say "reduce to a common denominator". I just said find a common denominator. I think the best solution will involve meeting in the middle- curbing excessive spending by whatever means are necessary, and also drastically increasing funding to public defenders to increase both their numbers and their prestige.
And regarding "whatever means necessary"- just because I can't invent something off-the-cuff to satisfy a random stranger on the internet, doesn't mean that human ingenuity, and well-thought-out legislation can't find a 90% solution. And no amount of cynical pessimism is going to change my mind about that.
You want to tell a man that he can't spend all of his money to hire the best lawyers he can afford to try to defend his freedom?
As for being able to come up with some "well-thought-out legislation", maybe you don't live in the same world as me, but the 20th century is strewn with the folly of those who think they can engineer society. I don't understand why so many of us are eager to repeat their mistakes.
Not everyone agrees Citizen's United is an insult to democracy. Do you even know what actual case was about? The government was trying to stop an anti-Hillary movie from being publicized because they claimed it was illegal campaign spending. The Supreme Court did right by rejecting an absurd attempt to regulate political speech.
What's the difference between money spent by the candidate and money spent by a super pac? If both pools are being managed by campaigning experts, there's not a single difference. Citizen's united established that there is absolutely no limit to the amount of money that a candidate can use to win an election, as long as there's a separate campaign manager for the PAC and they don't collude.
No, the hatred of CU is not absolutely unanimous. But it's pretty widespread, and no amount of word juggling will change the fact that it effectively allows unlimited amounts of anonymous untraceable money to influence elections.
I think allowing monetary restrictions on campaign-finance (with the exception of prohibiting anonymous donations directly to politicians) is the court's campaign-finance original sin.
When multiple people share an opinion and want to advocate for it, they have to spend money to get heard. Printing pamphlets, making videos, paying people to stand on the corner. You can't have freedom of speech without the corresponding freedom of advocacy.
I'm only taking your thinking to its logical conclusion. Lots of things about our society aren't fair, but trying to make them all fair would just make us all worse off. What's wrong with letting people pay for a better defense? How does what I spend on my lawyer affect the services that a public defender provides for someone else? Your argument is rooted in envy, not in an attempt to make anyone better off. All you propose is to make some people worse off so that the system can meet your criteria of fairness.
> but trying to make them all fair would just make us all worse off
Lots of ideas look ridiculous if you take them to ridiculous extremes. I'd feel silly if I had suggested a contitutional amendment requiring absolutely everything in the world to be absolutely fair in every way. Boy, I'd have egg on my face then.
It's easy to mock a straw man for looking silly, but it says a lot more about the one doing the mocking.
> How does what I spend on my lawyer affect the services that a public defender provides for someone else?
That's idiotic. In a contest between two people, one person having an unlimited budget absolutely makes a big difference. And you know this, because that was the point of your second sentence.
> Your argument is rooted in envy
Grow up. As someone who is actually pretty well off, and who has never been to court, I'm pretty confident in saying you don't know what the hell you're talking about. A desire to help the downtrodden doesn't mean I'm green with envy. You're just insulting a caricature you've drawn in your own mind with no relation to reality.
Your original argument was that lawyers on both sides of a criminal prosecution should be public employees. One side is already always a public employee, the prosecution. That's what I'm referring to here. The fact that one person can afford a better defense in one case doesn't do anything to hurt the defense of some guy that can't in another.
This is how you destroy civilizations. The Soviet Union and Cuba come to mind as places that tried to make society more fair by equally distributing poverty and oppression. You make society better by pulling the bottom up, not by pushing the top down.