zlacker

It's so frustrating because in the twisted universe where Thomas lives the ruling makes sense. To him justice is an algorithm that produces an outcome and only needs some minimum threshold of "overall the justice system locks up roughly the people we think it ought to" and all the appeals and after-the-fact proving your innocence gets in the way of the efficiency and to him, the effectiveness, of that algorithm.

And the thing is in a different context we celebrate this logic. When we do elections we don't really care about choosing the best candidate. We just go through the process, fight to protect the sanctity of the process because what's actually important is that people accept the outcome even if it makes so sense. Peaceful transfer of power and finality.

>>Spivak+(OP)
But those two are not the same right ? In elections everyone involved (candidates and voters) have agreed to the system. If they feel the system is not working as such they could always check the results. Sometimes something may pop up and we update the results. This is not the case in the justice system you mentioned above where it's not possible to correct any mistakes after the fact

>>Spivak+(OP)
It's called "just"ice, not "systemish". Getting the right outcome is meant to be a core goal of the system. Besides, there are many legal reasonings that would allow the process to give the right answer - that innocent people should not be killed. Thomas chose to find a different reasoning instead.

>>rdedev+o3
You are saying pretty much the opposite of reality. For elections there is an emphasis on finality and we would never overturn an election years later because of something like I had "an incompetent campaign manager." You can do things like recounts but the process ends shortly after the election and then that's it. But for criminal trials the appeals process is effectively endless, in most cases if there's new evidence that that proves your innocence you can get a new trail or if it's definitive enough just be let out of jail with an "our bad." I think this is good but Thomas wants it to be more like elections where once it's decided it's decided, you go through your punishment and we just accept that sometimes mistakes will be made.

>>lozeng+S4
All nine of them, and practically every lawyer of all persuasions, will tell you that the only justice is the equal application of the written law. And sense of "justice" to mean "fairness" is a job for the legislature.

The fact that legislation is always vague and they can interpret it to mean whatever their ideology wants it to mean is just waiting for more legislation to fix it. If there is an obvious miscarriage of justice, all you need to do is get a majority of the House, 60% of the Senate, and the President to all agree within a two year window. There, justice done.

>>Spivak+(OP)
We make the law "algorithmic" because the alternative is a lawless society. Laws have been written down and procedurally followed all over the world for thousands of years. Societies that fail to follow the rules are prone to instability and decay.

I'm not saying it was okay to kill the person. I'm saying we can't throw away laws but your comment continues to advocate for a less "algorithmic" (unambiguous) law. These types of comments are part of why people get radicalized on the internet.

>>lozeng+S4
No. Human legal systems will never be truly just. They are a reflection of ourselves and we are imperfect. We can only do our best.

In this case the guy got to go all the way to the top court. That's great. That sounds like a good system so far. So at very least it's not rotten to the core. Thomas is unfit and disappointingly partisan, but this appointment came from the executive branch, not the justice system itself. The justice system was set up so the executive branch can check the judiciary. In this case the executive Branch's actions really messed up, but I don't think it's fair to criticize the justice system.

>>LargeT+ic
What? The parent isn't arguing for "less algorithmic laws" or not enforcing laws. They are hypothesizing about the worldview of a supreme court justice who doesn't care about the accuracy of the outcome or what happens in edge cases.

Your sentence about people getting radicalized on the internet is non sequitur and bizarre.

>>jfenge+Ma
…and you'd only need a simple majority in the Senate if not for silly procedural rules.

>>jfenge+Ma
And yet, conservatives will happily just make up rules that aren't found anywhere in the written law to allow them to crush people under the justice system. Younger Abstention is an especially egregious example.