What is the Meaning of "Justice"?
December 30, 2010
The law blogging world offers two posts today that helpfully show what is wrong about the criminal justice system. First, the posts show that civility has more to do with passive-aggressive rules than honor and integrity. Second, the posts show that lawyers are gagged.
In one post, a law blogger notes that a federal judge sentenced a man to one year in prison for saying, "Fuck, y'all." I ain't even fucking kidding. That shit really fucking happened.
In an opining affirming the trial court (but allowing the man to go to prison for only six months), the Court of Appeals talked about civility and whatnot. Basically, a bunch of fucking bullshit.
In another post, a law blogger notes that a federal judge helped prosecutors break the law. Well, the law blogger doesn't go that far - because it's unethical for lawyers to say such things about judges.
Unlike other Americas, lawyers are not protected by the First Amendment. There is a Speech Code. See, Should Lawyers be Free to Publicly Excoriate Judges (noting that lawyers are indeed not free to excoraite judges) (cited among other sources in Annotated Model Rules of Professional Conduct).
Isn't that interesting? Lawyers are the ones with the most knowledge about the justice system. Thus, lawyers are allowed to say the least about the justice system. Does that make sense?
Lawyer speech codes make much sence, once you check your premise. What is the judicial system really concerned with? Read the above two blog posts, and reason accordingly.