krupparms said:
This took place sometime ago, but was real....
But then it's really impossible to answer questions about what happened and to analyze the legal issues without a whole lot more, very detailed and well documented information. Details matter.
krupparms said:
...I am trying to understand how the court cases that you are discussing relate to real life. Most court cases are crazy & some outlandish. ...
They might seem that way some times, but they are "real life." As the result of what goes on, peoples lives and property are affected. But the processes can seem complex, and they are non-intuitive. Understanding what goes on and how things work can require a lot of patience, study and work.
krupparms said:
...The man has no money to get leagle counsel. But why should he have to pay to get his rights back that have should not have been taken in the first place?....
That assumes a lot. It assumes that somehow the process didn't reach the appropriate result. You've concluded that, but I'm not going to assume that. I'd need a great deal more, documented, reliable information to be able to reach my own conclusions.
And sometimes what appears to someone with a particular perspective to be an incorrect result, really is not -- at least based on the law and the applicable facts. Sometimes people have bad results in court. When folks wind up in court someone wins and someone loses. The folks who lose, their friends and those who sympathize with them are unhappy about how things turned out.
And often the unhappy result is the correct result given the law and the facts. The court's job is to resolve disputes according to the law and the facts. Maybe some folks looking at how things turn out think the law should be changed. In general our system offers opportunities to try to do so through the political process.
And as far as being able to afford an attorney, that's a whole different issue. But not having one can be a false economy.
krupparms said:
...But not all of us are attorneys & I find some of the things you say hard to understand!...
Yes, I understand that sometimes things I say might be difficult to understand. I do try to make my comments intelligible, but, as I've said, often the legal issues are complex and non-intuitive. And often understanding some of these issues will require a certain knowledge base.
I don't necessarily know what everyone else here already knows. And I can't always in the short time and limited space I have undertake to lay a complete foundation.
If someone really wants to learn about the law and the legal system there might be other, more appropriate, sources of information. A while ago, someone posted
this question on TFL:
...Is there a trick or online resource that helps decode the legalese these are printed in, a secret magic decoder ring only law school grads have, or is it in reality a "wait for the translation" on the evening news or some other legal gun blog decoder?...
There were a number of good answers in that thread.
Here is mine:
Frank Ettin said:
I guess part of the difficulty reading laws and court opinions comes from a need to be familiar with the context -- where "law" comes from, what it is and how the process works. It might help to think of "law", i. e., statutes enacted by legislative bodies, constitutions and charters adopted by political entities to govern the operations of those entities, and past judicial opinions, as a tool used to decide the outcome of a dispute or disagreement. So when a court writes an opinion deciding a matter in contention, it is explaining how it applied the law to the facts and circumstances in order to decide the outcome.
Another part of the difficulty is a matter of volume and practice. In law school we read a lot of cases and talk about them a lot, all under the guidance of our teachers. Dealing with the subject matter regularly and in a disciplined, rigorous way is a big help.
Some on-line sources that might help --
- scotusblog: This is a blog by lawyers and law students focusing on Supreme Court activity. In addition to following cased, one can often find articles discussion Supreme Court actions and decision. This might offer some insight in how lawyers look at these things.
- The Legal Information Institute: This is a publication of the Cornell Law School. Among other things the site includes links to other resources and a legal encyclopedia.
- Oyex: This is a publication of the Chicago-Kent College of Law. It tracks Supreme Court cases and publishes articles.
- Often if you Google a case name you will find articles by lawyers discussing the case. Sometimes reading the articles in combination with the case opinion will help clarify the decision.