Posts by Moz
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
At the risk of derailing into the topic of jury trials, there's been a wee outbreak of moaning in the UK about their stupid jury-protection laws. It's vaguely relevant because they refer to the Aotearoa research. That's one of the very few actual cold hard looks as how juries work. And there are horror stories...
There was a newspaper article about a horrifying jury decision, followed by a parliamentary panic and rush to stop that ever happening again. Not the miscarriage of justice, obviously, but the revelation:
I defended the New Statesman during the legal fallout of the 1970s scandal. But ultimately a veil of secrecy was drawn over the British jury system
Which refers to this older article about the kiwi study:
A new study reveals some unsettling facts about the secret world of the juror - they often feel intimidated, scared and confused.
Secret Barrister is also good, like this case where a jury found someone guilty of "pretending to be a doctor while brown"
(I won't be offended if you moderate this away)
-
There's a whole bunch of law about parliament being paramount and courts not getting involved if possible that makes some of this stuff quite tricky to enforce. By and large it's been found useful to restrict the legal system to preying only on elected members who are actual (accused) criminals rather than getting tangled up in administrative actions. While it might be nasty if a minister violates some guideline, making the a criminal offense or otherwise subject to the courts can get ugly fast, especially if you were tempted to also mandate that the minister step aside while the process took place.
Sadly the alternative of making the discipline happen inside parliament is hard. In a two party system it's basically impossible, as you see with impeachments in the USA. But even in democratic countries it's fraught and generally ends up being political/popularity based.
I suspect we may have to discover better ways to make democracy effective and ministerial behaviour will fall out of those. Sadly most of the research seems to be on ways to diminish democracy and make it irrelevant. But strangely the people thus elected don't seem willing to change that (if for no other reason than that the next government can just change the rules back as Danyl wrote recently).
-
Hard News: We are, at last, navigating…, in reply to andin,
But the point of elected representatives is that it's explicitly a popularity contest. The alternative is a gerrymandering contest or a European-style presidential appointment process that we can see working ever so well even as we discuss it.
-
I also can't help but wonder whether anyone involved in that trial ever considered the gender-flipped version of events. How would they have reacted if she had gone round to his place, bent him over the banister and pegged him until he bled? Somehow I have trouble imagining the legal system saying "oh yes, any reasonable person would expect him to be happy with that".
-
Inquisitorial could be better, but as I said:
the law should be restated to remind participants that the "typical person" and "ordinary" person are both middle-aged women not entirely of Anglo-Saxon ethnicity.
I would also like to see experts selected similarly. Let the court of appeal bring the full weight of it's countering expertise to bear when necessary.
Admittedly I would also prefer that the accused be better protected and automatically compensated when necessary. As the saying goes, I'd rather see 100 men compensated for their time in prison pending successful appeal than a single innocent man have his life destroyed without compensation because "we found you not guilty in the end".
-
Up Front: A Word About Safety, in reply to Nick Russell,
The trouble with the "panel of experts" is that typically that means older, white, men. Often in legal systems that means especially preferring to use judges. Who have traditionally produced uneven outcomes in things like rape cases.
I'm inclined to the view that the law should be restated to remind participants that the "typical person" and "ordinary" person are both middle-aged women not entirely of Anglo-Saxon ethnicity. The typical judge, OTOH is a 60 year old rich white man ho has likely never been in a non-privileged situation.
On that note, I think that when on trial every member of the "legal professions" (broadly interpreted) should be represented by lawyers who may only use NZSL when dealing with people other than the defendant. Give them the hill to climb of not being able to speak in court and being reliant on others to convey their privilege. I mean "case".
-
And my friends wonder why I was so absolutely dead set on turning up for jury duty no matter what. And getting picked, even if I had to lawyer-language my way through any challenges.
This. Is. Why.
-
I'm seeing a lot of e-assist cargo bikes round here, where the "extra 20kg" is 10kg of power assist and 10kg of bigger bike. It's kinda cool to see the school run done on a bike, but there's no way you could replace that with a road bike to go faster. Even my usual "must be able to carry a 25kg sack of rice" is an impossible standard for road bikes, two kids would make heads explode.
OTOH, I know someone who does custom carbon frames and has a cargo bike in the lab. If that sees the light of day it'll be a really interesting thing - probably 6-8kg lighter than a standard e-cargo with the same capacity. And only twice the price!
One of the problems I have with speed limited assist is that I mostly want e-assist for longer journeys specifically so I can go faster with stuff on the bike. Cycle touring speeds of 20-25kph are not always practical when I need to go somewhere, but getting a reasonably efficient motor for the 20-50kph speed range is tricky. Of course, in Australia it's also not road legal but since they don't police it I'm taking the traditional aussie approach of "no harm no foul" or whatever.
-
Up Front: The Real Victims, Here, in reply to Bart Janssen,
How does a society create such people? Did nobody notice that they were insane?
Based on my limited interactions with lonely young men, there seems to be a transition possible from "sad and lonely" to "hatefilled arsehole" via the pick-up artist school. I seriously think that it's partly a side effect of the marketing of that shit. The whole "100% certain success with any woman" stuff leads to "I did the thing but she looked at me like I was shit. Can't be the technique, must be her".
My comment to the sad'n'lonely guys is some variation on "it might sound trite, but 'don't be a dick' covers 99% of it. And most of that is thinking about how she's going to feel about what you do".
-
InCel is one of those labels that kind of ends the conversation. It's like someone who says "I'm a nazi" or "god commands us to kill the gays"... the best response is "let me know when that changes" and adding them to a watch-list. Ideally the type that prevents them having access to firearms.
I'm not a huge fan of watchlists and stuff as a rule, but when someone chooses to label themselves as needing that sort of attention, bring it on.
I’m Emma, and I’m a victim.
Hi, I'm Moz and I'm an inquisitive idiot.
all those people calling him a homophobic idiot just because he said something idiotically homophobic. Christians are the real victims here.
Won't someone think of the Christians who aren't homophobic idiots?
Also, thank you for reminding me of "that tweet" because I still love your writing and and that particular headsplosion.
Emma: eyerolling out loud is rarely so funny.