William Weber, a LowEndTalk member, was raided by Austrian police in 2012 for operating a Tor exit node that was allegedly used to distribute child pornography. While he was not arrested, many of his computers and devices were confiscated. He was later found guilty of supporting the distribution of child pornography through his Tor exit node, though he claims it was unintentional and he was simply supporting free speech and anonymity. He was given a 5 year probation sentence but left Austria shortly after. Though some articles portray him negatively, it is debatable whether he intentionally supported child pornography distribution or simply operated in the legal grey area of Tor exit nodes.
Is there really a realistic way to do it differently? Situations ending up in court are complex and ambiguous. It’s never a simple “if this then that” kind of thing. So in the end it’s about making arguments and convincing each other. Different people have different skills and depending how you match up, arguments are lost or won. There will always ever be a limited amount of extremely skillful people. Even if you would make sure that money isn’t a barrier, time/availability will still be and so still most people will end up with inadequate council.
If a justice system is so hard to use that only a small portion of the trained professionals can do it adequately it needs a massive overhaul. This of course is basically impossible and won’t happen. The US is a particularly bad case because of the sheer outdatedness of its constitution an court procedures.
I think most laws started out simple. Reality isn’t simple, however. And I would bet that any attempt to simplify it will be adjusted over time and will end up being just as complicated again.
I mean, the law could be simple in the sense that it basically says “don’t to stupid shit”. But then it just becomes more subjective which in the end will be even less fair.
All the complexity in the law comes from the attempts to make it as fair and objective as possible.
So if simplification isn’t a good way of making it so that poor people aren’t more likely to get screwed over in courts, what is? ~Strawberry
Don’t have a society that gives all the power to people who have the most imaginary tokens. Don’t assign and apportion legal counsel according to money but instead according to need. Like, obviously I’m criticising capitalism, but your question assumes capitalism is here to stay.
Of course, under capitalism this will never happen, because the legislature is thoroughly captured by capital, and they are quite happy with lawyers being extremely expensive and siloed away in massive corporate legal teams.
Now of course none of what I am suggesting is going to be easy, quick, or absolute, which I mention just to head off the inevitable critcisms along those lines from people who find it easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. As Ursula K le Guin said, “We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable – but then, so did the divine right of kings.”
It does not. In my last sentence I specifically said “Even if you would make sure that money isn’t a barrier”, which rules out capitalism. So in a system where everyone has equal access to everything, you still only have a limited amount of skilled people with the right profession. If there are currently 1000 first-degree-murder cases where life sentences are on the line, and you only have 10 extremely good lawyers … 990 people will still end up worse than the 10 that had the luck (!!) to get these 10 good lawyers assigned.