I don’t know, it seems pretty fair to me to say that if you prevent justice from being done for an act committed against someone else then you deserve to have that act directed at you, at least in general terms. That sort of consequential thinking is one of the first things we teach our kids. Why should the answer change just because the subject matter does? It seems pretty reasonable to assume that this lawyer did not genuinely believe Cuomo was innocent. Perhaps “deserve” isn’t quite the right word but I think “fuck around and find out” certainly applies, and when you summarize that phrase it expresses pretty much the same sentiment as the word deserving.
The job of a defender is to hold the judicial system to a high standard, to ensure the prosecution does its job properly and to provide a counterweight on the scales of justice.
If a criminal walks free, it’s not the fault of the defender, but of the prosecution if they failed to find convincing evidence of his guilt.
Coversely, if an innocent person does get convicted, the defender failed to effectively refute the evidence.
Of course, this idealism doesn’t hold if the system is fucked by crooked courts, biased judges and competent, committed counsel being unaffordable to poor people, but that also doesn’t mean the defender is to blame for playing their part well.
I don’t think I would phrase it that way but if you make a career out of knowingly getting murderers off the hook then yeah, you deserve bad things. There’s lots of people who deserve things, both good and bad, that never get those things. Being deserving of something is not a guarantee that you will get it.
You definitely shouldn’t be teaching children “eye for an eye” or that turnabout is fair play. It’s good to teach that actions have consequences, but it’s not okay to tell them that rapists deserve to get raped, that’s fucked up.
That sort of teaching is incredibly common whether you think it should be or not. If you have kids I’m sure you’ve done it yourself many times. “You ate Timmy’s candy so now you have to give your candy to Timmy” is not fundamentally different from what I said above.
That’s quite a bit different of an example. What you just said is actions have consequences. If you steal something, your punishment is a monetary penalty. That would be equivalent to, “you raped someone, you pay a fine and go to jail”. If your example had little Timmy stealing candy from the perp, that would be more in line with the initial compare.
The examples don’t hold up the best compared to something like rape because there is an exchange of items vs a physical action. A better comparison would be little Timmy got bit by little Sally so now Timmy gets to bite her back. Rational people don’t teach their kids to bite back instead teaching them to get an adult to handle Sally.
All this to say there’s also self defense which is notably different from retaliation.
I see where you’re coming from but can’t say I agree with your conclusion. She had much more information and time to make her judgments about Cuomo than a typical woman has before they have to make a judgement call on people who could be dangerous. She’s also very well paid, it’s not as if Cuomo wouldn’t have representation if she refused him. Despite this I really dont believe that sexual harassment/assualt can serve as some sort of punishment or some catalyst that sparks rehabilitation, or even positive change. I also don’t believe physical or mental forms of violence can achieve those aims so maybe that’s part of it.
I don’t know, it seems pretty fair to me to say that if you prevent justice from being done for an act committed against someone else then you deserve to have that act directed at you, at least in general terms. That sort of consequential thinking is one of the first things we teach our kids. Why should the answer change just because the subject matter does? It seems pretty reasonable to assume that this lawyer did not genuinely believe Cuomo was innocent. Perhaps “deserve” isn’t quite the right word but I think “fuck around and find out” certainly applies, and when you summarize that phrase it expresses pretty much the same sentiment as the word deserving.
The job of a defender is to hold the judicial system to a high standard, to ensure the prosecution does its job properly and to provide a counterweight on the scales of justice.
If a criminal walks free, it’s not the fault of the defender, but of the prosecution if they failed to find convincing evidence of his guilt.
Coversely, if an innocent person does get convicted, the defender failed to effectively refute the evidence.
Of course, this idealism doesn’t hold if the system is fucked by crooked courts, biased judges and competent, committed counsel being unaffordable to poor people, but that also doesn’t mean the defender is to blame for playing their part well.
So every public defender deserves to be shot then?
I don’t think I would phrase it that way but if you make a career out of knowingly getting murderers off the hook then yeah, you deserve bad things. There’s lots of people who deserve things, both good and bad, that never get those things. Being deserving of something is not a guarantee that you will get it.
But how do you know they’re a murderer until it’s proven in a fair trial?
You definitely shouldn’t be teaching children “eye for an eye” or that turnabout is fair play. It’s good to teach that actions have consequences, but it’s not okay to tell them that rapists deserve to get raped, that’s fucked up.
That sort of teaching is incredibly common whether you think it should be or not. If you have kids I’m sure you’ve done it yourself many times. “You ate Timmy’s candy so now you have to give your candy to Timmy” is not fundamentally different from what I said above.
That’s quite a bit different of an example. What you just said is actions have consequences. If you steal something, your punishment is a monetary penalty. That would be equivalent to, “you raped someone, you pay a fine and go to jail”. If your example had little Timmy stealing candy from the perp, that would be more in line with the initial compare.
The examples don’t hold up the best compared to something like rape because there is an exchange of items vs a physical action. A better comparison would be little Timmy got bit by little Sally so now Timmy gets to bite her back. Rational people don’t teach their kids to bite back instead teaching them to get an adult to handle Sally.
All this to say there’s also self defense which is notably different from retaliation.
I see where you’re coming from but can’t say I agree with your conclusion. She had much more information and time to make her judgments about Cuomo than a typical woman has before they have to make a judgement call on people who could be dangerous. She’s also very well paid, it’s not as if Cuomo wouldn’t have representation if she refused him. Despite this I really dont believe that sexual harassment/assualt can serve as some sort of punishment or some catalyst that sparks rehabilitation, or even positive change. I also don’t believe physical or mental forms of violence can achieve those aims so maybe that’s part of it.