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A decade is obviously too long, but there is some value in taking a long time to decide important matters. If you rush everything in a short time span, you risk
by kijin 7y ago
A decade is obviously too long, but there is some value in taking a long time to decide important matters. If you rush everything in a short time span, you risk getting carried away by the public opinion and political environment of the moment. This can be especially problematic when it comes to the kind of deep constitutional issues that we expect the Supreme Court to grapple with; the court needs to keep a certain distance from the propaganda du jour. Besides, it's not uncommon for people on the death row to dig up evidence that exonerates them many years after the case was deemed closed. If we sped up the whole legal system and carried out sentences asap, they might not have been given enough time to do so.
Meanwhile, the system can be surprisingly agile if it needs to be. New York Times Co. v. United states only took 12 days from the first hearing to the Supreme Court ruling! Of course that was because Nixon wanted to rush the case, but in the end he lost hard and the heat of public opinion probably didn't help, either. In the case of Google v. Oracle, nobody seems to be particularly in a hurry. Both sides can afford to drag out the dispute as long as they want to.
- gpm 7y agoI mean, it's a fair point that the schedule of this case doesn't matter that much. But cases of nearly every sort take too long. To be honest I mostly included that line out of frustration with a Canadian Supreme Court ruling today, that said having a juvenile trial go on for 18 months can be "sufficiently speedy". Which is definitely off topic here, but still one I consider important. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/supreme-court-youth-justice-1.5359939 https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/supreme-court-youth-justice...
- kijin 7y agoI agree that it's ridiculous to drag a kid through the legal system for 18 months. Ideally, criminal cases involving minors (and individuals in general) need to be fast-tracked, and there should be a strict limit (measured in weeks, not months) on how long prosecutors can take to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that somebody committed a crime. If they can't prove it before the timeout, the defendant goes free. This should also reduce the incentive to stack one frivolous charge upon another for psychological effect. Aaron Swartz committed suicide just over two years after he was first arrested. He never faced an actual trial during those two years, only an endless series of indictments with minor changes. But as I said, this is a double-edged sword. People need time to collect evidence and arrange witness testimonies, so insisting on a quick resolution could create bias in favor of those who can pay for a lot of lawyer-hours up front.