[spenczar5]

> And, oh yeah, there was that time they threw a lawyer in jail for defending a Holocaust denier.

That's not an honest reading of the article you linked. From the article, "[the lawyer] also signed a motion during Zündel's trial with "Heil Hitler" and shouted that the lay judges deserved the death penalty for "offering succour to the enemy" -- leading the court to dismiss her." She was a neo-Nazi herself.

[lr4444lr]

How about this one then? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germar_Rudolf

[bloobloobloo]

In other words, she didn't defend him the way you feel that she should have.

We'll just make a list of all the arguments that are okay to advance in court, so then lawyers know which ones are forbidden.

That seems like a good concept with no far-reaching implications.

[yflu]

You are generalizing well beyond the scope of the action.

[bloobloobloo]

A lawyer went to prison, for statements she made, in court, in defense of her client.

The action doesn't need embellishment from me.

[yflu]

Do details no longer matter?

"A man was arrested for walking." and "A man was arrested for walking and aiming a rifle at a woman." are clearly different actions.

A lawyer went to prison, for illegal statements she made, in court, in defense of her client. These illegal statements that would be illegal even outside the context of being a federal court lawyer.

I can't understand this fetish of generalizing to the point of total vagueness. Case-by-case analysis is just as important now as ever.

[bloobloobloo]

> for illegal statements she made

Oh it was ILLEGAL. Why didn't you say so? That makes it totally palatable that a lawyer might be imprisoned for doing his job, and doesn't AT ALL impeach the entire concept of a "trial."

> would be illegal even outside the context of being a federal court lawyer.

You have it backwards, friend. The inside of a courtroom needs MORE protections for speech, not fewer, than the outside. Laws like libel simply don't apply there (disclaimer: in the US. Can't speak for how they do it in failed states like Germany), and for very good reason.

[throwawayjava]

Let's put the issue of Nazi speech being illegal in Germany aside for a moment.

If my lawyer yelled "Heil Hitler" and claimed the judge in my case should be murdered, while ostensibly defending me, I'd want them at the very least disbarred and wouldn't mind a bit of jail time.

BTW, I highly doubt a judge exhibiting this behavior in the USA would keep their law license, and they'd probably end up slapped with a contempt charge as well.

> The inside of a courtroom needs MORE protections for speech, not fewer

Perhaps for the defendant. But actually, in every country -- including the USA -- lawyers have extremely strong and often vague constraints on their speech.

And even then, what you're saying just isn't true, even in the USA. There are far more constraints on your speech during a trial than in the public square. Judges in the USA have extremely wide latitude in determining what can and cannot be said, how those things should be said, etc. Those are constraints that judges can enforce in their courtroom but cannot enforce in the public square.

Also, FWIW, knowingly committing libel during a trial is probably a bad idea. Even in the USA.

> disclaimer: in the US. Can't speak for how they do it in failed states like Germany

Well, if you consider Germany a failed state then I'm not really sure what to say. They have their problems, but then so does the USA. No place is perfect.

E.g., using your metric, the USA has THREE TIMES more rape than Germany. So if you put your identity politics aside for a second and look at the data, you come to a far different conclusion.

Also, IMO German citizens have a lot more practically useful freedoms than US citizens, even speech-related freedoms. "Don't be a Nazi" is something the Germans are pretty serious about, but they're a lot more lax about a lot of other speech that is de facto prohibited in many parts of the US. Eg, I seriously doubt Damore would've lost his job in Germany. And the Germans I talk to claim it'd be unambiguously illegal. And cultural self-censorship matters as well -- I'm much more comfortable discussing Christianity in Bavaria than in Alabama.

Germany draws their lines differently from the USA, but we're talking more about delineations at the fuzzy edges than actual differences in kind.

So again, if Germany is a failed state, I'm not really sure what a non-failed state looks like. At this point it's kind of hard for me to take you seriously.

[dragonwriter]

> (disclaimer: in the US. Can't speak for how they do it in failed states like Germany)

While neither is much like a failed state, the US right now is a lot closer than Germany (and more clearly heading in the direction of getting closer yet.)