4 ms·
They always appeal.. "Dad, why is the American government the best government? "Because of our endless appeals system" Thank You for Smoking
by underseacables 3y ago
They always appeal..
"Dad, why is the American government the best government?
"Because of our endless appeals system"
Thank You for Smoking
- rubberband 3y ago"Your teacher crafted that question? Look, ignoring obvious problems in the syntax..." Beyond underrated (the book / movie)
- ncallaway 3y agoAppealing a criminal conviction is quite hard. It's certainly his right to file an appeal, but he's likely going to be detained for the duration of the appeals, and the likelihood of being successful seems pretty low to me.
- JackFr 3y agoYeah you don’t just automatically get an appeal. You need to point to specific errors in the trial. Of which it didn’t seem like there were many.
- kosievdmerwe 3y agoYeah, but even if it's not automatic and you need specific errors. A legal team is going to file one. Their arguments might vary and ultimately might not be very good, but you miss every shot you don't take.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y agoHe can only appeal on grounds that were raised during trial. Did his lawyers even object to anything? Did they try to prevent the admission of key evidence? Did they raise any points of constitutional law? If not, he might be fucked. Appeals aren't just "the lower court convicted me and I want to try again", they are "the lower court got it wrong, my lawyer brought the point up, but then they ignored it".
- qingcharles 3y agoI wouldn't agree that it is necessarily hard -- I've done dozens of appeals -- but often with trials there is not a lot of meat left on the bone; most appeals I see are trying to make mountains out of molehills. What will usually happen is that the defense team will find dozens of trial errors, but none of them will get over the bar of being serious enough that they would have swayed the jury, since the evidence presented was too conclusive. So, the appellate court will note that the trial judge could have done a better job, but then leave the conviction intact. Most criminal convictions in the USA are only overturned on constitutional violations relating to searches and seizures, probably none of which apply here.
- ncallaway 3y ago> but often with trials there is not a lot of meat left on the bone; That's basically what I meant by it being "hard". Maybe "rare" would be a better term. The main thrust of the point is that the federal judiciary has been running criminal trials for a long time, and has worked out most of the kinks at this point. Most district courts are able to run a criminal trial without creating an error that creates an opportunity to overturn the conviction on appeal.
- qingcharles 3y agoAgree. And federal courts are way better at this than state courts. Federals are more academic. State courts the judges are just running buck wild doing whatever the hell they feel and never looking in a law book in their lives.
- dragonwriter 3y agoAlso, if you have a federal issue, you have more swings at an appeal froma state conviction.
- qingcharles 3y agoEvery time I see the 11 appeal steps in a state conviction chain I get anxiety.
- StressedDev 3y agoAppeals are expensive and risky. He may appeal but I doubt he has the money to. Also, he probably has no grounds for appeal because he really did commit fraud, the government has a lot of evidence that he is a criminal, and the government did not violate his rights.
- pcwalton 3y agoI suspect he'll appeal. When you're looking at life in prison, as Bankman-Fried is, there's no reason not to make the Hail Mary play.