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DisastrousDisastrousPosted Jun 4, 2012 17:34 UTC (Mon) by drag (subscriber, #31333)In reply to: Disastrous by man_ls Parent article: Ah! The Morning After... (Groklaw)
It should come as no surprise as almost all Politicians in the USA are/were practicing lawyers. You can look back at their history and see that many of them made a immense amount of money doing very questionable lawsuits. While the patent system may be a vampiric drag on the economy and progress and the only people that benefit from most of it are lawyers... there is certainly professional courtesy to think about.
After all if you put your friends out of business then there is little chance they will invite you to the cool parties later on.
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Disastrous Posted Jun 4, 2012 17:37 UTC (Mon) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] But then when the big cases come to court, most of the decisions fall on "our" side (i.e. on the side of common sense and good business). According to your argument judges must be pariahs outside their courtrooms... Just wondering aloud.
Disastrous Posted Jun 4, 2012 22:49 UTC (Mon) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
Judges have their own circles, plus Lawyers need to kiss Judge's asses in order to get what they want. So if a Judge, especially a appointed district Judge, pisses of the Lawyers it's not going to matter because the Lawyers will still need to behave in a obsequious manner towards them.
They are, effectively, a higher level legal lifeform.
To put it into perspective: The district court judges are effectively appointed for life and they are not only completely isolated from the consequences of their decisions they are immune against any sort of prosecution. They can pretty much do whatever they want. They could steal your car, drive it drunk down the road and kill 3 or 4 people and they would not face any immediate consequences. They couldn't be charged with a crime, I am not even sure they can be arrested. It literally takes a act of congress to impeach a federal district judge.. so the only people that can do anything about a badly behaving Judge is Congress, and the Judge would have to be behaving VERY badly. To put it in 'mafia' terms. The Judges, once appointed, are 'Made men'. They can do what ever they like to you, but if they think you are looking at them the wrong way they can throw you into jail upwards to months.
In terms of court decisions the _ONLY_ thing restraining them and controlling their decisions is the opinions of their peers. Which are other district court Judges.
Now the only chance for a lawyer to get a one-up on a Judge is if they manage to get elected to office and end up on some committee that reviews a Judge appointment.
> But then when the big cases come to court, most of the decisions fall on "our" side
I think that is a exaggeration.
They got Google pouring millions of dollars into a huge waste of time. They were able to play the FUD card for months on end. Oracle, Apple, and friends forced Google to pay 20 billion dollars for what amounts to a stack of worthless patents. (If the patents were so good then the company that made them wouldn't be a failure).
And Google (and others) are only going to choose to defend themselves when it's a pretty obvious slam dunk like this one. I am sure that in 90% of cases they just roll over and throw money at the problem because it's cheaper to pay up then fight it.
Android phone makers roll right over and pay Microsoft, Apple, and others for the right to sell their own hardware running open source software, for example.
Disastrous Posted Jun 4, 2012 23:25 UTC (Mon) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
umm, no Judges are not above the law. If they commit a crime they can be tried, convicted, and sent to jail just like anyone else.
what you can't do is sue a judge for what they did in a particular case. You can make a case that they have become incompetent and need to be removed, but to do so you need to convince a panel of the Judge's superiors (and it probably requires showing a pattern where a Judge is being reversed on Appeal on a regular basis)
This is a deliberate move to make it so that Judges are not swayed by short-term political thinking, and is why people dig so much into the background of any Judge that's being appointed. The time of appointment is just about the last point where a Judge is examined to see how ethical they are.
Also, remember that every individual Judge can have their ruling appealed, so any horrible decisions that they make can be reversed. This makes it so that it's not just a matter of one person's whim, it requires that the Judges that the Appeal goes to must also agree with the ruling.
Or to put it more precisely, any interpretation of the Law can be evaluated by the Judges that hear the Appeal, and only if they agree with it does it stand.
Disastrous Posted Jun 5, 2012 18:47 UTC (Tue) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
> umm, no Judges are not above the law. If they commit a crime they can be tried, convicted, and sent to jail just like anyone else
Well, more or less. I remembered.
What I was referring to was that no matter what they do the district Judge is always going to remain a district judge, even if convicted of a felony.
Disastrous Posted Jun 5, 2012 18:50 UTC (Tue) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
> I remembered.
a typo. Meant to say 'I misremembered'.
Disastrous Posted Jun 5, 2012 23:30 UTC (Tue) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
except that the other judges (at least the next layer up) can remove a judge, and would probably do so for a felony conviction (I wouldn't be surprised to learn that there is language mandating this, you can't serve on a jury, vote, etc with a felony conviction)
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