Politics: J'accuse!

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
It is odd that conservatives who think that the death penalty deters crime do not seem to think that corporations will also act rationally when similarly confronted with dire penalties. Funny that. Maybe if corporate executives were denied communion.

If you want corporations to be accountable, you have to hold the executives running the corporations and making the decisions personally liable for their decisions. Just like you and I as attorneys are personally liable for our acts as attorneys.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
Do liberals think that dead people aren't deterred from committing more crimes?

I think most people focus on the deterrent effects on others who might commit crimes. Most conservatives don't publicly support the idea of deterring criminals by executing them.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
Do liberals think that dead people aren't deterred from committing more crimes?

Yes, because liberals tend to understand the difference between "deterrence" and "recidivism."

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Most conservatives don't publicly support the idea of deterring criminals by executing them.

You are wrong about that when it comes to murderers.

[Slave Once Again]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
A sock with a post count of 19 shouldn't be calling someone else a naif. Unless they can be funny about it. Try again.

I'm sorry, I forgot how protective you get of Joshua Micah Marshall's reputation and so I take back my naif comment. On the other hand I still find you to be naif-wannabe.

And as for my status, 19 posts or not, I'm so regular I would be dangerously close to becoming paigow if I didn't change my log-on once in a while.

[Not Me]

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Con...l=968705899037

MP strikes plea deal in Iraq case
Guards' superiors didn't know about abuse, he says

• WASHINGTON (CP) - The first American soldier to face trial in the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal says his colleagues joked around as they beat and sexually humiliated their captives but claimed that his superiors were unaware of what they were doing.
  
  "If they saw what was going on, there would have been hell to pay," Specialist Jeremy Sivits says in two legal statements released to some U.S. newspapers.
  
  Sivits, who faces a court-martial next Wednesday in Baghdad, implicated some of his colleagues, saying they stripped prisoners and forced them to masturbate. One jumped on a pile of detainees, "then stomped on either the fingers or toes" as they screamed, he said.
  
  A prisoner with bullet wounds in his leg was handcuffed to a bed while a soldier hit him with a police baton, said Sivits, who reportedly reach a deal with prosecutors and is expected to plead guilty.
  
  Another detainee was so punched hard in the temple that he blacked out.
  
  "I was laughing at some of the stuff that they had them do," Sivits says in a January statement.
  
  "I was disgusted at some of the stuff as well."
  
  Sivits pegged Cpl. Charles Graner as a ringleader of the abuse and torture at Abu Ghraib prison and was "acting like he was enjoying it."
  
  Graner has been charged on several counts, including committing indecent acts, adultery and other counts.
  
  Other U.S. military police facing charges say higher-ups or intelligence officers encouraged them to "soften up" prisoners for interrogation.
  
  "I could have said no to anything, but I would have been disobeying an order," said Sgt. Javal Davis, one of the accused.
  
  "So you can either get in trouble for not doing what you're told or get in trouble for doing what you're told," Davis told ABC today. "It's kind of like a Catch-22."

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Slave Once Again
I'm so regular

Is that you Atticus?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Slave Once Again
I'm sorry, I forgot how protective you get of Joshua Micah Marshall's reputation and so I take back my naif comment.

OK, that's funny. Ha.

[Not Me]

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/...0000_in_taxes/

[Not Me]

If you get a chance, read up on all the strange things that are being learned aobut Nick Berg. His e-mail account was used by Maossauwi (sp?) after he lent it to a fellow student at U of OK (where both Berg and Maossauwi were students).

It gets even stranger. Apparently many people told him he was foolish for being in Iraq with no purpose and urged him to leave. His response was "I know these people better than you." He traveled around with no offers or any realistic hope of getting work in Iraq. He would use public transportation and stuck out like a sore thumb.

Supposedly when he was arrested by the Iraqi police, he was carrying a Koran and an anti-semitic text (he is jewish). When released, he was offered a free flight out of Iraq but refused it.

Strange, strange, strange, indeed.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch

lots of stuff

It's too late to try to answer all of this, but it seems the main point of disagreement here is not whether punitives are appropriate in some cases (which I don't disagree that they are), but rather whether compensatory damages are sufficient to compensate. If you believe you need punitive damages to compensate, then you're issue should be with the compensatory damages system, not preservation of the punis system. I'm all for adequate compensatory damages, and I'd happily support reform to ensure that they're given. But using punis to fill in for holes in compensatory awards is disingenuous, whether or not it benefits your clients. (And this is true for the judgment-proof ones as well. It's not like taking the punis from Nicole Brown Simpson's family, but leaving them the comps, would have taken away the Heisman trophy they got out of the suit.)

As for the "public" good of enforcing the laws and behavior . . . Sure, punis can help to do that. But that still isn't a justification for letting the plaintiff keep them, that's just a justification for letting them be assessed. And, sure, there are second-order effects, which is the reduction in incentive to bring the cases. But even your example of false claims act cases gives only 10% as the reward. That's a 90% tax. Are you saying that's too low and the government should simply allow the plaintiff in those cases to keep 100%?

There's no obvious answer to teh question of whether current punis law over or under-deters, and whether reducing the plaintiff's actual collection of that money would change the level of deterence. But I am fairly confident that random awards of punitives are a fairly inefficient mechanism of deterence, and to encourage that method of enforcement is misguided.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
There's no obvious answer to teh question of whether current punis law over or under-deters, and whether reducing the plaintiff's actual collection of that money would change the level of deterence. But I am fairly confident that random awards of punitives are a fairly inefficient mechanism of deterence, and to encourage that method of enforcement is misguided.

I think AG is arguing his points because it is in the best interest of contingency-fee plaintiff's attorneys. That is his reasoning and that alone.

My beef is with his notion that keeping 25% of punitives won't be incentive enough to pursue them. Take a look at other areas where contingency fees are capped, like worker's comp or social security disability claims. They are capped at like 10% or something low like that. Yet there are plenty of attorneys willing to do this low-margin work.

It is just false that no one will do low margin work. AG is just angry that he may be relegated to doing lower margin work.

Liberals like AG are such hypocrits. They are for making as much money as they can and everyone else paying taxes.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Not Me
I think AG is arguing his points because it is in the best interest of contingency-fee plaintiff's attorneys. That is his reasoning and that alone.

Or, it could be that he sees the bulk of punitive damages awards (not counting the exceptionally outrageous stories that are usually about as inaccurate as most anecdotal evidence is) as being assessed against truly blameworthy defendants, and, even then, the frequency is fairly low, while the anecdotalosity keeps them in the corporate minds such that they really DO have a chilling effect on egregious corporate behavior. Or not.

My beef is with his notion that keeping 25% of punitives won't be incentive enough to pursue them. Take a look at other areas where contingency fees are capped, like worker's comp or social security disability claims. They are capped at like 10% or something low like that. Yet there are plenty of attorneys willing to do this low-margin work.

The WC work, the SS work, and the other fee-capped fields are acceptably profitable because the frequency of recovery is so much higher than PI work. Take on an injured worker case, and you ARE going to get a recovery. SS is more problematic, but still not as dicey as PI. So, you can make money by getting 1/3 from the 10% of the PI cases that hit, or by getting 1/10 from the 90% of the WC cases that hit. But, a capped, or substantially limited, punitives probability (which is way south of the PI hit probability) makes it not worth the time and effort. Putting on a puni's case is a whole 'nuther case, and is usually more expensive and more complicated to run than the basic PI case itself, plus putting on a puni's case that isn't REALLY strong can kill your PI case - makes it all seem like greedy overreaching to a juror. Not a worthwhile risk unless the potential is high.

It is just false that no one will do low margin work. AG is just angry that he may be relegated to doing lower margin work.

It ain't that big a factor in the life of the typical PI drudge. It's something to throw out at mediation, usually, and that's only if you get that far, since, in most states, you need to go back after serving your lawsuit and request permission from the court to amend and add the puni claim. Judges don't really like them.

Liberals like AG are such hypocrits. They are for making as much money as they can and everyone else paying taxes.

No, that's me. AG probably likes paying taxes, as it makes his posts seem more sincere. NOT paying them makes mine seem more sincere.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
If you believe you need punitive damages to compensate, then you're issue should be with the compensatory damages system, not preservation of the punis system. I'm all for adequate compensatory damages, and I'd happily support reform to ensure that they're given. But using punis to fill in for holes in compensatory awards is disingenuous, whether or not it benefits your clients.

Well, maybe it's the beers I've had in the interim, but that's making some sense. I do think that the potential for punitive damages compensates somewhat for a stacked deck, and I would favor having the rules of the game adjusted on the damages side. Plaintiffs, generally speaking, win about as often as they should, but they're forced by economic circumstances, to accept less than what makes them whole, whether by judgment or settlement. I see this happen doing defense work, too --- hold out, and the plaintiff always winds up taking a haircut because our system imposes the cost of further litigation on them. Giving them a higher top end doesn't seem unfair to me to compensate for this. I agree with your below point that it's less efficient than other "reforms."

Under the "punitives belong to the state" reform, you're calling for unilateral disarmament on the plaintiff's side before promising anything to assure balance is restored to the system.

As for the "public" good of enforcing the laws and behavior . . . Sure, punis can help to do that. But that still isn't a justification for letting the plaintiff keep them, that's just a justification for letting them be assessed.

Right, and as a policy guy I want to write rules that effectuate the ends at the lowest social cost. Here, presuming that bullshit puni claims are regarded as such by defendants --- and they are --- the only "cost" of the system is the moral outrage at the windfall.

And, sure, there are second-order effects, which is the reduction in incentive to bring the cases. But even your example of false claims act cases gives only 10% as the reward. That's a 90% tax. Are you saying that's too low and the government should simply allow the plaintiff in those cases to keep 100%?

Qui tam cases are special, because no part of the claim belongs to the plaintiff. Never did. The payment is more like the "inconvenience bonus" some courts give class reps (where the controlling law doesn't preclude such awards under some fiduciary theory). Giving the plaintiff 10% when he suffered no injury is just Congress's way of incentivizing whistleblowing, because it's the bringing of the lawsuit that's the pain in the ass (and which ends your career). Punitives are an add-on to a system that presumes you're compensated for bringing the lawsuit by getting your compensatories.

But I am fairly confident that random awards of punitives are a fairly inefficient mechanism of deterence, and to encourage that method of enforcement is misguided.

I agree with the first half of this sentence. I would gladly welcome the introduction of government enforcement of the malice/oppression/fraud policy rather than have it done by punitive damages. Why are you advocating the first half of radical reform without the necessary second half?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

This graph (too big to post here) of Bush approval ratings is interesting. It shows a steady decline, with three upward spikes following 9/11, the start of the Iraq War, and the capture of Saddam Hussein.