[clavalle]

>the court will decide whether the government can freeze all of a defendant’s assets before trial, even those the government itself concedes aren’t tainted by any connection to criminality, thus effectively preventing that defendant from paying for his own defense.

The shadow issue of our time is equal access to the legal system. It will be interesting to see how this changes the dynamic of the court system if the Supreme Court really decides that defendants cannot hire their own counsel though it is a bit like solving the equal access to education problem by banning all private colleges -- more than a little absurd.

[davidgay]

> though it is a bit like solving the equal access to education problem by banning all private colleges -- more than a little absurd.

While one can definitely argue against this view, it's far from absurd: the basic argument is that the availability of private college/lawyers/your-favourite-resource favours the rich and powerful, and that you can only get actual equal access for all to education/trial-defense/something-else if you force the rich and powerful to have an equal playing field with everyone else (at which point they will then use their power to ensure a decent/good level of the service for everyone, including themselves).

Two fairly different, and likely overly generalised and simplified, examples of this view: - the British left-wing view of private (known as "public" in Britain, to confuse us all) schools (vs state schools): they allow the rich&powerful to get away with underfunding/neglecting the state school system, as it doesn't actually affect them, their family or their friends' family - the Swiss view of public schools - paraphrasable as "Swiss private schools are for foreigners" - which more or less implies that using (or a society needing) a private school is a moral failing ;) (ie the rich&powerful will help fix the public schools rather than send their children to the private one)

[vidarh]

The Norwegian view of private schools was long that only those rich to send their kids to Swiss private schools (or similar) would use them...

Since the rise of the labour movement, sending your kids to private schools has been largely seen as either a moral failing like in Switzerland, or an admission that your kid is so dumb that you need to buy them a diploma from somewhere else. For a very long time there were hardly any in Norway at all.

To take your example one step further: This same argument is part of the reason why in Norway there are heavy restrictions on private healthcare providers offering necessary services to the public - the public healthcare system has a near monopoly on this. Private providers can provide elective surgeries etc. like breast implants and other cosmetic surgery that is not (usually) covered by the public healthcare, but are mostly prevented from offering services covered by the public healthcare system.

Here the argument goes further: It will ensure everyone has an incentive to ensure the public healthcare is good enough. But it also will ensure that private actors are not substantially draining the public system of resources, such as e.g. doctors that are substantially subsidized by the public education system in the first place.

Basically going private is seen as immoral queue-jumping that will indirectly deprive more needing patients of treatment by reducing the available resources.

> known as "public" in Britain, to confuse us all

It's worse. Not all private schools are public schools. It is first and foremost used about some of the oldest, most exclusive private schools, but "public" here comes from being open to the (paying) public irrespective of e.g. religion or occupation or where you live contrary to e.g. private schools run by religious groups and similar.

[kardashev]

Wow! What a depraved view they have. I wonder if they would still think it was moral to limit their children to a 3rd world education because it's only fair that education (level) be equal for everyone?

Human progress is made by those who are exceptional. It is only through the efforts of exceptional people that everyone else's lives are improved. Imagine if Faraday and Einstein were forced to not publish, and even destroy their papers because it wasn't "fair" that they had discovered something that other people hadn't.

Is this view of "fairness" fair at all? Should we break the legs of a natural runner, so they can only run as fast as the average person? Should we damage the brains of the gifted so they are equal with everyone else? Rather, shouldn't people have the freedom to excel as far as they can?

The intellectually gifted should be encouraged to excel as far as they can, because their work and discoveries will cause tremendous improvements to the human condition. It would be more fair for there to be special schools for the gifted, so they are not slowed down by the lowest common denominator.

Imagine that you had the intellect to cure cancer, or make solar power more economical than fossil fuels. Now imagine that you are denied from accomplishing these things because it isn't "fair" for you to earn more money than others. Guess what? It takes tons of money to do research and development. The only reason Elon Musk is making the major improvements for humanity that he is, is because he was able to use his intellect to earn lots of money so he could do even better things.

What would become of humanity if we decided to hinder everyone to the same skill and wealth levels? What would become of progress?

[anon4]

If the country is so far in the shitter, that they can't pay for good schools for everyone, then allowing only the comparatively mega-rich to pay for mediocre education, while everyone gets nothing won't solve the problem and might even exacerbate it farther.

About 50% of people have an IQ of over 100. That makes them smarter than average. But of course, how smart you are doesn't correlate with how rich your parents are, which has a much bigger impact on your future. In that light, won't it be most fair to test people on their intelligence, then have the state seize everyone's assets once per year and redistribute it proportionally on that?

[sokoloff]

Just as I think you can't allow money to solely guide outcomes, you also can't allow intelligence to solely guide.

It's a fact that I'm somewhere on the right side of the intelligence curve. If I just laid about and waited for the state to funnel me vast sums of other people's money, society is worse off than in a world where I need to create something of value in order to be paid.

Taking away the incentive to create value (by annually confiscating the rewards) leads to a terrible outcome, and I believe a more terrible outcome than today. I agree that money has too much influence today, but that adjustments should be made methodically and carefully to prevent massive unintended consequences.

[nemothekid]

I'd argue that Swiss public schools being so "good" is a function of social homogeneity and income equality, than it is one of forcing rich kids to attend public schools.

The obvious counter example is the US, where public schooling is sectioned off by neighborhood and rich kids still attend school together because they can afford to live in their respective neighborhoods. Even worse, the US spends more money per child on public teaching, and still has some dreadfully bad public schools due to various inefficiencies.

In short, I think your assessment is backwards private college/lawyers/your-favourite-resource don't favor the rich, instead the rich build private college/lawyers/your-favourite-resource to favor themselves (or their children).

[gadders]

>>The obvious counter example is the US, where public schooling is sectioned off by neighborhood and rich kids still attend school together because they can afford to live in their respective neighborhoods.

This happens in the UK too. People who are unwilling to send their children to private school will instead move to a more expensive house because it is in the catchment area of a good school. This is morally equivalent to using extra money to sending your child to a private school.

[vidarh]

Certainly does.

Near us (South London) the price difference between a 2-3 bedroom house in particularly good catchment area vs. an average one is at least 100,000 pounds, sometimes more...

Which makes it very clear that it's priced based on private school costs, given that the private schools near here costs ~10k/year (huge variations, but that's roughly it for 2-3 of the most popular ones)...

I've had the argument with my ex. over my sons school too. I had halfway given in and agreed to send him private, but we ended up sending him to the local school two doors down from me instead of 40-60 minutes travel to the nearest suitable private school, thankfully. But we'll be having that argument again over secondary school, I'm sure.

[Arnt]

The point isn't the rich kids, it's the parents. When all or very nearly all the children attend the same school, the capable, resourceful parents experience that school and care about it. (Simplified, but you see the point.)

[lifeisstillgood]

Total tangent but the public/private school thing is one of history.

When there were no schools at all, wealthy English would have "private" tutors at home. Then schools became popular - one would go to a school with other rich children, which was "public" compared to home tutoring. When state funded schools arrived, they needed to distinguish between the phrase "public" school and "state funded" school.

In the USA, the concept of a "public" school was the norm by then, so they never bothered using "public" to distinguish them, so when state funded schools arrived private and public became the other way round.

So simply put, the USA was already a socialist paradise by the time they came to name their schools

[vidarh]

> So simply put, the USA was already a socialist paradise by the time they came to name their schools

Amusingly Marx in the Critique of the Gotha Programme, used the (then) US system of regulation of schools without running them as an example of a system preferable to state run schools (I realize you mentioned "state funded" as opposed to "state run", but in most state funded systems too it tends to be the state that sets the curriculum in particular and exercise far more control than outlined in the quote below):

'"Elementary education by the state" is altogether objectionable. Defining by a general law the expenditures on the elementary schools, the qualifications of the teaching staff, the branches of instruction, etc., and, as is done in the United States, supervising the fulfillment of these legal specifications by state inspectors, is a very different thing from appointing the state as the educator of the people! Government and church should rather be equally excluded from any influence on the school. Particularly, indeed, in the Prusso-German Empire (and one should not take refuge in the rotten subterfuge that one is speaking of a "state of the future"; we have seen how matters stand in this respect) the state has need, on the contrary, of a very stern education by the people.'

EDIT: Note that he does not argue against public/local government influence on the schools, but it is a red thread (..) in Marx' writings that he was strongly critical of state influence vs. local, direct control.

[wavefunction]

>>that you can only get actual equal access for all to education/trial-defense/something-else if you force the rich and powerful to have an equal playing field with everyone else

This sort of precedent would only hurt the indigent or impoverished. Wealthy people have wealthy friends who will pay for their legal defense. Financing will be offered to the wealthy, allowing them to maintain access to disproportionate resources in their defense. The poor, not having access to social networks of wealthy friends or family will be screwed. It's bad enough having to get time off of work or find child-care for the poor and working-classes, now they won't have access to their meagre resources?

I wish society would do a better job of considering the ramifications of what is supposedly being accomplished by the adoption or pursuit of policies. "Equal playing field" is nice in theory but it took me a few seconds to realize that the wealthy would still be able to marshall considerable resources just like they already do, except that the poor won't.

[vinceguidry]

> the basic argument is that the availability of private college/lawyers/your-favourite-resource favours the rich and powerful, and that you can only get actual equal access for all to education/trial-defense/something-else if you force the rich and powerful to have an equal playing field with everyone else (at which point they will then use their power to ensure a decent/good level of the service for everyone, including themselves).

I don't get it. Can you actually argue in court that because a particular outcome would be "unequal" in terms of access, that the services in question shouldn't be available to anybody? As far as I know, that's never been a viable argument. You have to satisfy a much stronger criteria for this sort of thing, that it's an actual public ill. Inequality, as far as I know, has never, by itself been sufficient to prove that.

[davidgay]

Sorry if I wasn't clear. This is not a legal argument, but a political one.

[ctlby]

The basic argument is superficially appealing, but it's far from clear that it's true. Critiques of failing institutions have more force when there exists a credible threat to walk away. See e.g. "Exit, Voice, and Loyalty"

[themartorana]

Isn't it oddly adversarial to say that on the one hand, the government can cripple your ability to mount a private defense, but on the other your defense will come from that same prosecuting and asset-freezing government?

Haven't we time and again seen industry more willing to protect its benefactor?

[abfan1127]

however, the person is considered innocent until proven guilty, therefore those assets shouldn't be seized until such proof.

[eximius]

Tell that to victims of civil forfeiture who are never even charged.

[Natsu]

Two problems: the asserts are only frozen in this case. This is a fraud case, not a drug case, and they've not been subjected to civil asset forfeiture, so this doesn't touch on that.

The other is that if they can never freeze the assets, someone can simply spend or transfer all of their money after stealing it. If a thief has $5,000 and they steal $5,000, they can spend the stolen money and then claim the $5,000 they originally had is untouchable because they only spent stolen money.

[wavefunction]

How about some sort of middle-ground? An individual is accused of $x fraud or theft, $x of assets are frozen? That seems perfectly reasonable.

[lmm]

Did you read the article? They're not fighting the freezing of the $45m of alleged proceeds of fraud, only the $15m of unrelated assets. The government argument is that those would be payable as a fine upon convicting so they don't want that money transferred out of the country.

[abfan1127]

you are still assuming that the thief is guilty.

[Natsu]

Even you are calling that fictitious entity a "thief" rather than an "alleged thief." But it's just a character in a story, not a real person, nor does it represent anyone.

It's normal to make that part of a story to see how the law would play out in various cases. The point of that has nothing to do with guilt or innocence, it's to point out that the outcome of the desired ruling is simply to reward people for spending stolen money. This is a perfectly normal thing that is often used when discussing laws. [1]

This is different from saying that about the actual people being accused. This context is important. Otherwise one is failing to separate reality and fantasy.

[1] Many examples can be found here: http://lawcomic.net/ It's written by an actual lawyer: http://burneylawfirm.com/Firm/

[themartorana]

Yes, thank you. I came back here to edit my previous comment to ask whether or not asset forfeiture is anything but the presumption of guilt. I get the argument about assets being contested and therefore should be frozen, but they're being frozen by the prosecuting party, and therefore isn't so unbiased.

[Natsu]

That's a separate argument for a more robust and effective public defender's office. This is arguing that there's a right to obtain a counsel of choice, which is an argument that the justices said they have already rejected in oral argument [1]. The petitioner in this case is being represented by Howard Srebnick: http://www.royblack.com/attorneys/Howard/Srebnick/ and not a public defender.

[1] http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcri...

"JUSTICE KAGAN: I might just be repeating myself, but ­­[...] I thought that, again, that distinction was the one specifically rejected in Monsanto."

[rogeryu]

Get legal insurance. I don't know if this is available in the US, but over here in the Netherlands it's really affordable for about $150-200 a year, including things regarding your home and car. I've had this for years without using it, but it's worth the money. This year I had to use it for the first time and the service is quite good up til now.

[limeyx]

Indeed. When only the rich and wealthy can afford legal services and everyone else is forced to plea-bargain to things they didnt even do in order to avoid the threat of decades behind bars ... something has gone wrong.