I’ve started putting photos of the UK trip up on Facebook. I’d put them on Flickr but they say I’ve already got too many and should start paying them. Didn’t they read that book about the internet being free? What I really need to do is figure out a way to post them to my own site. Some day, when I’ve got some time on my hands. As it is, editing the photos takes longer than going to England and taking them in the first place. The SLR is still new to me, and I seem to have taken a lot of pictures that are slightly askew, something I noticed late in the trip that I starting thinking about on the fly but meanwhile I’ve now got to fix it on the ground, and it takes forever. I’ve worked out a system using iPhoto and Elements alternately, and it’s very confusing and, trust me, you really don’t want to hear about it. I estimate that, at the rate I’m going, I’ll be done in time for the DDA. At which point I can start all over again.
I also managed to record a Nostrum over the weekend, but had all sorts of issues with the uploading to my site and the RSS and hearing it in iTunes. I ended up loading a couple of different versions, and never did understand the problem. So maybe, if you’re a subscriber, you’ll hear the same episode (with Botch and Wednesday) twice. Maybe not. It is available on the NostrumNation blog, in any case, if you need to get it. Which, I guess, stretches the definition of the word need beyond your wildest nightmares.
I wasn’t able to go to CatNats, where SuperSquirrel debated her very last round (always a gleeful moment). I’m curious to see how she and the Panivore did in the ballot count. And of course, the P has to prep for NatNats. No rest for the wicked. Anyhow, before the event we had a call for a TVFT from Rob Frederickson, as I like to call him, which Bietz set up, and I enjoyed that conversation a lot. Adam T was also with us, and in addition to CatNats we discussed NatNats, so if you’re running that LD topic, you might want to check it out. I also posted a segment of Fred trying to set up Skype. The man is not a technophobe, but he’s not exactly Mr. Skype either. And he does resort to salty language at times, so there goes our G rating. I’m thinking of making a hip hop recording out of it.
And, oh yeah, there is the iPad. It took me a while to get it set up, mostly because there was a whole new EULA that I didn’t bump into right away that was walling me up. Then there was the Apple store guy telling me to let it run down the charge, so I haven’t gone back and synched it again to see how some of the issues were working out. One big thing for me is reading books for the DJ, and that means getting mss that come into the office into iBooks, which requires, first, turning them into ePub format, and second, dumping them into iTunes on Vegas Elvis, then synching the iP to VE to get them into iBooks. A lot of bloody hoo-ha, in other words, but worth it. Something as simple as reading them on Stanza doesn’t work because the Stanza software for the Touch, while it expands to cover the territory of the iP screen, gets too fuzzy for extended reading sessions. And a simple pdf is possible, but it has none of the elegance of an iBooks title. Anyhow, my overall take on the device at the moment is pretty favorable, and I haven’t even tried to play iPad Civ yet. It’s a little heavy for reading, but not prohibitively so: it wasn’t so bad that when I virtually tried to turn the page that I fell out of bed or anything. O’C wants to use his for tabbing, which requires a virtual connection to your home machine, which seems to avoid the need to do something simple like print schematics, but that’s him and not me. I’m seeing him this Friday, so we can compare notes. I do need a name for mine, though. Nothing immediately comes to mind, but I’ll keep working on it.
Showing posts with label law. Show all posts
Showing posts with label law. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
I the Jury
I am mildly disappointed at not having to go to NYC for jury duty. On the positive side, I don’t have to go down to NYC for jury duty, but on the negative side, I sort of enjoyed my previous jury stints. For a couple of weeks way back in the 70s I did two weeks of Manhattan civil court. This was back in the day when you went there and hung out. For two weeks a bunch of us played cards every day; I was never once called even to interview. At one point one of our group led us to his favorite Chinese restaurant and we had a great lunch. It turned out even greater when the guy turned out to be the owner! There is such a thing as a free lunch after all.
Those two weeks, by the way, made me an expert on civil law.
Then I spent a month or two on grand jury duty in White Plains. We’d show up a couple of days a week and, yes, as a result I became an expert on grand juries. The range of cases was large, but there was nothing really horrible: no murders or deaths, but there was one serious beating. Lots of DUIs. A little general mayhem, including the guy who was running down the street naked when he was arrested, and his explanation was that he had lost his clothes in a craps game. He was one of the high points of the experience, because he testified on his own behalf (against counsel). A word of advice: don’t do what your lawyer tells you not to do. And also, don’t bet your clothes on a roll of the dice.
I figured that this time out I would become an expert on criminal law. I also figured I would put what I have learned about nullification into practice, but alas, neither was to be. I do feel that I have served, however. Going by a Kantian interpretation of intention, coupled with the finagling I did at the DJ to make myself available to this great country of ours, plus the two telephone calls to a different area code, this looks pretty convincing to me. I should, by my lights, be off for the next four years.
I’m sure criminals, both state and federal, are in complete agreement with this interpretation.
Those two weeks, by the way, made me an expert on civil law.
Then I spent a month or two on grand jury duty in White Plains. We’d show up a couple of days a week and, yes, as a result I became an expert on grand juries. The range of cases was large, but there was nothing really horrible: no murders or deaths, but there was one serious beating. Lots of DUIs. A little general mayhem, including the guy who was running down the street naked when he was arrested, and his explanation was that he had lost his clothes in a craps game. He was one of the high points of the experience, because he testified on his own behalf (against counsel). A word of advice: don’t do what your lawyer tells you not to do. And also, don’t bet your clothes on a roll of the dice.
I figured that this time out I would become an expert on criminal law. I also figured I would put what I have learned about nullification into practice, but alas, neither was to be. I do feel that I have served, however. Going by a Kantian interpretation of intention, coupled with the finagling I did at the DJ to make myself available to this great country of ours, plus the two telephone calls to a different area code, this looks pretty convincing to me. I should, by my lights, be off for the next four years.
I’m sure criminals, both state and federal, are in complete agreement with this interpretation.
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
I fought the law and the law won
I put up a Google alert on jury nullification and the first thing I got was my own blog entry.
Whatever.
I’m fascinated by law, as members of the VCA, or at least those who follow the feed, know well. You can make a lot of claims about what law is, that it is socialized morality, for instance, but I’m reluctant to go so far. There are laws against spitting on the subway, for instance. This act of expectoration, while crude, hardly strikes me as immoral (unless you have some viciously contagious disease that will infect anyone who comes within ten feet of your phlegm, or can envision some other science fiction scenario worthy only of the greenest philosophical novice). We legislate all sorts of stuff. Law is part of society’s attempt to organize itself, to identify a set of actions that are not permitted, for whatever reason. I guess you can say that anything that there is not a law against is allowed.
Law as we’re discussing it here is, obviously, social. That is, we are talking about laws that are enacted within a society as a measure of civil order. Whoever holds the power in a society gets to make the laws, to create the civil order. There is no guarantee that the power-holder always makes what we could call “good” laws. I mean, look at who could be holding the power. In a dictatorship, it could be some monomaniacal strongman general who is robbing the country blind and who makes laws to protect himself from his enemies who would stop him from his evil-doing. Monarchs share this dictatorial focus of power in one person or family, but can be either enlightened or comparably evil, and will act accordingly. In a democracy, where power is held by the people, we still don’t necessarily only get laws that somehow benefit the people, although that would theoretically appear to be the goal. It doesn’t make sense for democracies to enact laws that would harm the members of the democracy, but that this not happen would require that the enacting of law be a perfect system that always works as intended. We have plenty of evidence that demonstrates that this is not the case.
Still, the intention of democracy is law that benefits the populace, since the populace does, by definition, create the law, and we can intuitively assume that the populace would have its own benefit in mind. Locke classically explains how laws should be created, and the centuries that have succeeded him have offered no better scenario. The idea is to create a legislative body that represents the people, and have that body come up with the laws that will manage those people. The entire scope of this legislative body is that creation of law, not its execution, not its application. Legislators make legislation: end of story.
So law exists to create a civil order, and in a democracy a special legislative body is empowered to create that law. Once laws are created, they are out of the hands of the legislative body, and into the hands of the executive, which enforces those laws, and the judiciary, which interprets those laws.
The resolution at hand, jury nullification, deals only with the subset of law that defines criminal acts or areas of civil dispute that are resolved by juries. The passing of a healthcare bill, or non-passing of a healthcare bill, is another thing altogether. But when crimes are committed, or disputes are taken to court, juries usually come into play. Juries are composed of the peers of those who stand before the court. Whether or not you committed such and such a crime, broke such and such a law, is decided by the people at large, in other words, based on the evidence brought before them. These are, theoretically, the same people who created the law that you are accused of breaking.
In a courtroom, everyone has a particular role to play. The two sides of the case argue their positions, presenting such evidence as they think will win the day. The judge is there to make sure that both sides of the case follow the rules, and also that the jury follow the rules. The judge will see to it that the lawyers don’t cheat, in other words, and also to make sure that the jury understands what is going on. Every trial is a question of whether there was some sort of violation of the law or, in civil suits, the violation of a party’s rights. It is the judge’s job to clearly present to the jury what exactly is being charged, and what the law is regarding it, so that the jury can go off and decide if a law has been broken in this case or a right has been infringed. It does not matter if the judge believes one side or the other; it only matters that the judge make it clear to the jury what their job is in this particular case, so that they can make a decision. What the jury believes is all that matters.
There are, of course, plenty of process issues that can throw off the rather ideal picture painted above, of two sides being kept within fair boundaries by an impartial judge who clearly explains the situation to the jury so that they can decide without prejudice. One judge might admit evidence that an appellate might consider inadmissible, and so forth and so on. An appellate might even determine that a judge’s statements to a jury are prejudicial. If you’re really interested in all the ins and outs, either go to law school or rent the DVDs of any popular legal TV show. You’ll see it all, sooner or later.
Jury nullification is, very specifically, a jury saying (explicitly or implicitly) that a particular law is unjust, and that they refuse to prosecute someone under that law. It doesn’t matter if the person “did it,” although the assumption is that they did. What matters is the law itself, and the jury’s refusal to apply it. The jury, a handful of people with no standing as legislators, the creators of laws, or judges, the interpreters of law, take it on themselves to do, or undo, both that making and that interpretation. In other words, they take the law into their own hands.
Shades of civil disobedience!
I cross-posted some material from Jim Anderson’s blog on the Feed that you might want to take a look at. It will provide the legal standing (or lack thereof) of nullification, but not necessarily a commanding explanation of why it is right or wrong. That you’ll have to do for yourself. There are so many ins and outs to his subject, you can start almost anywhere. As I said Monday, I wish that more people were debating this one more often.
Whatever.
I’m fascinated by law, as members of the VCA, or at least those who follow the feed, know well. You can make a lot of claims about what law is, that it is socialized morality, for instance, but I’m reluctant to go so far. There are laws against spitting on the subway, for instance. This act of expectoration, while crude, hardly strikes me as immoral (unless you have some viciously contagious disease that will infect anyone who comes within ten feet of your phlegm, or can envision some other science fiction scenario worthy only of the greenest philosophical novice). We legislate all sorts of stuff. Law is part of society’s attempt to organize itself, to identify a set of actions that are not permitted, for whatever reason. I guess you can say that anything that there is not a law against is allowed.
Law as we’re discussing it here is, obviously, social. That is, we are talking about laws that are enacted within a society as a measure of civil order. Whoever holds the power in a society gets to make the laws, to create the civil order. There is no guarantee that the power-holder always makes what we could call “good” laws. I mean, look at who could be holding the power. In a dictatorship, it could be some monomaniacal strongman general who is robbing the country blind and who makes laws to protect himself from his enemies who would stop him from his evil-doing. Monarchs share this dictatorial focus of power in one person or family, but can be either enlightened or comparably evil, and will act accordingly. In a democracy, where power is held by the people, we still don’t necessarily only get laws that somehow benefit the people, although that would theoretically appear to be the goal. It doesn’t make sense for democracies to enact laws that would harm the members of the democracy, but that this not happen would require that the enacting of law be a perfect system that always works as intended. We have plenty of evidence that demonstrates that this is not the case.
Still, the intention of democracy is law that benefits the populace, since the populace does, by definition, create the law, and we can intuitively assume that the populace would have its own benefit in mind. Locke classically explains how laws should be created, and the centuries that have succeeded him have offered no better scenario. The idea is to create a legislative body that represents the people, and have that body come up with the laws that will manage those people. The entire scope of this legislative body is that creation of law, not its execution, not its application. Legislators make legislation: end of story.
So law exists to create a civil order, and in a democracy a special legislative body is empowered to create that law. Once laws are created, they are out of the hands of the legislative body, and into the hands of the executive, which enforces those laws, and the judiciary, which interprets those laws.
The resolution at hand, jury nullification, deals only with the subset of law that defines criminal acts or areas of civil dispute that are resolved by juries. The passing of a healthcare bill, or non-passing of a healthcare bill, is another thing altogether. But when crimes are committed, or disputes are taken to court, juries usually come into play. Juries are composed of the peers of those who stand before the court. Whether or not you committed such and such a crime, broke such and such a law, is decided by the people at large, in other words, based on the evidence brought before them. These are, theoretically, the same people who created the law that you are accused of breaking.
In a courtroom, everyone has a particular role to play. The two sides of the case argue their positions, presenting such evidence as they think will win the day. The judge is there to make sure that both sides of the case follow the rules, and also that the jury follow the rules. The judge will see to it that the lawyers don’t cheat, in other words, and also to make sure that the jury understands what is going on. Every trial is a question of whether there was some sort of violation of the law or, in civil suits, the violation of a party’s rights. It is the judge’s job to clearly present to the jury what exactly is being charged, and what the law is regarding it, so that the jury can go off and decide if a law has been broken in this case or a right has been infringed. It does not matter if the judge believes one side or the other; it only matters that the judge make it clear to the jury what their job is in this particular case, so that they can make a decision. What the jury believes is all that matters.
There are, of course, plenty of process issues that can throw off the rather ideal picture painted above, of two sides being kept within fair boundaries by an impartial judge who clearly explains the situation to the jury so that they can decide without prejudice. One judge might admit evidence that an appellate might consider inadmissible, and so forth and so on. An appellate might even determine that a judge’s statements to a jury are prejudicial. If you’re really interested in all the ins and outs, either go to law school or rent the DVDs of any popular legal TV show. You’ll see it all, sooner or later.
Jury nullification is, very specifically, a jury saying (explicitly or implicitly) that a particular law is unjust, and that they refuse to prosecute someone under that law. It doesn’t matter if the person “did it,” although the assumption is that they did. What matters is the law itself, and the jury’s refusal to apply it. The jury, a handful of people with no standing as legislators, the creators of laws, or judges, the interpreters of law, take it on themselves to do, or undo, both that making and that interpretation. In other words, they take the law into their own hands.
Shades of civil disobedience!
I cross-posted some material from Jim Anderson’s blog on the Feed that you might want to take a look at. It will provide the legal standing (or lack thereof) of nullification, but not necessarily a commanding explanation of why it is right or wrong. That you’ll have to do for yourself. There are so many ins and outs to his subject, you can start almost anywhere. As I said Monday, I wish that more people were debating this one more often.
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