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If the Boston Marathon bomber was suing the government for not letting him set more bombs off, and a law firm was helping him file that suit, yeah, they should

If the Boston Marathon bomber was suing the government for not letting him set more bombs off, and a law firm was helping him file that suit, yeah, they should be condemned. Everybody has a right to a defense. But helping somebody attack another party is unethical.

crankylinuxuser 8y ago
> Everybody has a right to a defense. But helping somebody attack another party is unethical. What you call "attack" is also called "being made whole". I don't know the details of the case. But unless there is egregious reason to forbid a potential plaintiff from filing, then let them commence. I have no clue who's right here; I wasn't in the courtroom.
- icebraining 8y ago
  It's not being made whole if it's a spurious case, which we now know it was (not because they lost, because of how they lost), and the lawyers should have known from the start. So they're either incompetent or unethical.
AmericanChopper 8y ago
Personally I find the idea of withholding civil justice from criminals to be entirely repugnant. No matter what their crimes are. I don’t think there is any such crime that would justify withholding justice from an individual.
- icebraining 8y ago
  I don't think the point is whether they are criminals, but whether their legal action is at all reasonable. Suing the government in order to plant bombs is itself unethical. So is suing someone in order to enforce a patent which "attempts to monopolize the abstract idea of monitoring a preexisting data stream between a server" (quoting the judge).
  - AmericanChopper 8y ago
    One of the role of judges is to determine whether their legal action is reasonable at all. To say that a criminal should not be able to be a plaintiff in a civil suit, or that barriers should be established to prevent it, is simply to deny their access to civil justice. It’s an entirely mindless position.
    - icebraining 8y ago
      You keep focusing on the criminal part, not sure why. That wasn't the point at all, from what I can tell.
- sl1ck731 8y ago
  That isn't entirely the purpose of defense attorneys. They are also responsible for ensuring clients get the "correct" punishment for the crime. If they weren't present there would be no check on heinous sentences for minor crimes.

crankylinuxuser 8y ago

> Everybody has a right to a defense. But helping somebody attack another party is unethical. What you call "attack" is also called "being made whole". I don't know the details of the case. But unless there is egregious reason to forbid a potential plaintiff from filing, then let them commence. I have no clue who's right here; I wasn't in the courtroom.

icebraining 8y ago
It's not being made whole if it's a spurious case, which we now know it was (not because they lost, because of how they lost), and the lawyers should have known from the start. So they're either incompetent or unethical.

AmericanChopper 8y ago

Personally I find the idea of withholding civil justice from criminals to be entirely repugnant. No matter what their crimes are. I don’t think there is any such crime that would justify withholding justice from an individual.

icebraining 8y ago
I don't think the point is whether they are criminals, but whether their legal action is at all reasonable. Suing the government in order to plant bombs is itself unethical. So is suing someone in order to enforce a patent which "attempts to monopolize the abstract idea of monitoring a preexisting data stream between a server" (quoting the judge).
- AmericanChopper 8y ago
  One of the role of judges is to determine whether their legal action is reasonable at all. To say that a criminal should not be able to be a plaintiff in a civil suit, or that barriers should be established to prevent it, is simply to deny their access to civil justice. It’s an entirely mindless position.
  - icebraining 8y ago
    You keep focusing on the criminal part, not sure why. That wasn't the point at all, from what I can tell.
sl1ck731 8y ago
That isn't entirely the purpose of defense attorneys. They are also responsible for ensuring clients get the "correct" punishment for the crime. If they weren't present there would be no check on heinous sentences for minor crimes.