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1997-08-20 - Re: An end to “court appointed attorneys”

Header Data

From: Tim May <tcmay@got.net>
To: cypherpunks@Algebra.COM
Message Hash: 963d8e7e29daffcb2d6d4f01551f1b350e8a36e74aabb649ca4eecda761e9784
Message ID: <v03102800b020f11a804e@[207.167.93.63]>
Reply To: <v03102800b020de3710e3@[207.167.93.63]>
UTC Datetime: 1997-08-20 19:21:33 UTC
Raw Date: Thu, 21 Aug 1997 03:21:33 +0800

Raw message

From: Tim May <tcmay@got.net>
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 1997 03:21:33 +0800
To: cypherpunks@Algebra.COM
Subject: Re: An end to "court appointed attorneys"
In-Reply-To: <v03102800b020de3710e3@[207.167.93.63]>
Message-ID: <v03102800b020f11a804e@[207.167.93.63]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



At 12:00 PM -0700 8/20/97, Paul Pomes wrote:
>At 10:49 PDT on Wednesday, August 20, 1997, Tim May wrote:
>
>|>Maybe for the simple reason that some people might not have the money to
>|>defend themselves ?
>|
>|And what of those without the money to feed themselves? Etc.
>
>The difference is that the lack of means to feed oneself is usually self-
>selected.  Political criminals, or people simply unaware that they're felons
>under an increasing number of laws, seldom have a choice whether they will
>be arrested and tried.
>
>Certainly the preferred solution is to junk most of the laws on the books.
>However until committing a felony is an explicit conscious act, we will
>need court-appointed attorneys for persecution victims.

I don't buy this. You are, of course, welcome to join Patrick Oonk in
funding lawyers for those unable (or unwilling) to pay. Demanding that I
pay for your charitable desires is, of course, theft.

As to your stipulation that this is for "political" cases, I of course
agree that there are too many laws. So? The fix is not to add fuel to the
engine of the beast by subsidizing a large infrastructure of "public
defenders" (really just taxpayer-funded "apprenticeships" for lawyers to
eventually enter private practice).

Why should those who managed to save money, for example, subsidize those
who did not? Jim Bell, for example (but not to pick on him...but he's the
current example), is almost as old as I am. And yet he made choices in his
career which left him indigent, or unable to pay for a legal defense. So
why should I and other taxpayers, including those working for $7 an hour at
Taco Bell, subsidize his lawyer-in-training?

Not that Bell's lawyer did any good....

--Tim May


There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws.
Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!"
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1398269     | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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