455 replies to this topic

[Tulac]

This is probably the best example of buerocratic logic:

Quote

#  Lawyer: "Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?"
# Witness: "No."
# Lawyer: "Did you check for blood pressure?"
# Witness: "No."
# Lawyer: "Did you check for breathing?"
# Witness: "No."
# Lawyer: "So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?"
# Witness: "No."
# Lawyer: "How can you be so sure, Doctor?"
# Witness: "Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar."
# Lawyer: "But could the patient have still been alive nevertheless?"

[Juni Ori]

Exactly, Tulac!

[A. J. Raffles]

That one's almost certainly a myth, though.

[Tulac]

Does it matter though?

[Juni Ori]

It's not a myth, but it's a joke of current court-systems in several countries.

[taikara]

I think you guys are missing the point when you use this joke as a judgement on the legal system of various countries.

Yeah, it's a funny joke, and that's largely because it's based on truth - lawyers do come up with the most outside-the-box logic they can possibly manage.

But that's what they're supposed to do. They're paid to make people see things in a different way, in order to win their case.

The fact that some people attempt to scam the legal system and some actually manage to do so (usually via the assistance of these outside-the-box lawyers)does not indicate an ineffectual legal system. If anything, a litigious society promotes awareness of culpability - large companies, who have more financial power than the "little guy" are less able to screw the little guy over when he can turn around and penalize them big-time for doing so.

We have a few well-known instances of questionable suits here in the US - The McDonalds Coffee Lady, the Big Tobacco suits, the Fast Food Fatty - all of them questionable because culpability was shared by the individuals in the suit. The thing is, the media sensationalizes these sorts of cases, and tends to ignore or downplay the majority of instances where the cases are less ridiculous. They are sensationalized because they are not normal.

The biggest downside is that questionable cases in which the individual won reduces culpability for the little guy - leading in turn to more litigiousness. But just because someone starts a suit doesn't mean they're actually going to win. Dependent on the venue, multiple people (jury, judge, grand jury, etc) have to agree on the outcome - sometimes more than once, if the decision is appealed.

In other words, the lawyer with his courtroom antics and bizarre logic is not the legal system itself. He is merely a tool of the legal system, and should not be used as the sole evaluation of the judicial machine.

[Juni Ori]

Thus the system is critically flawed, if someone may exploit it so badly. But you are correct, the systems are not bad, but compared to certain others, they are nearly ridiculous. Thus the joke is actually having the point far more than you say. And I'm not saying there's flawless court system anywhere - but if the system is so inflexible, that it can't use common logic, I call it seriously flawed.

And here's one example of above (from your home-country): you can't be charged but once of a single crime! One investigator screws up something and murderer goes free, and no matter how much more evidence there may come up later, he walks free. Just one example. Very good one, actually.

[BeefontheBone]

Double jeopardy. It's there to stop one from being repeatedly tried for the same crime and to secure the meaning of an "innocent" verdict, in theory at least.

[Juni Ori]

Well but problem being that in here people can be charged for multiple times if there's new evidence revealed - which eliminates the possibility to keep on charging suspect.

[Tulac]

I agree with Juni, and I also think the joke proves it's point very well, if lawyers are able to contradict simple logic then the system is seriously flawed.

[taikara]

*ahem*

The lawyers can say and do whatever they want, they don't actually decide on the case. If a jury made up of 12 peers really unanimously fell for the logic in the joke you posted, it's not the legal system that has flaws, it's society in general.

[Juni Ori]

Well, actually there's the flaw: we don't have jurys that have final word...

[Tulac]

taikara, on Feb 12 2007, 12:19 AM, said:

*ahem*

The lawyers can say and do whatever they want, they don't actually decide on the case. If a jury made up of 12 peers really unanimously fell for the logic in the joke you posted, it's not the legal system that has flaws, it's society in general.

It's the legal system which should prevent illogical decisions to be made in the first place. It should be defined as clearly as possible so expensive lawyers youldn't fool the layman jury(in USA case at least).

[A. J. Raffles]

To return to the Cadbury's example, though: another reason why they want to be extra careful is of course that allergic reactions to nuts can be strong enough to kill people, and in extreme cases that can happen even if an allergic person eats something that contains only tiny traces of nuts because it has been manufactured on a line on which nut products are processed. Sure, including the fruit and nut easter egg in the list sounds a bit ridiculous, but the real issue are the other products, obviously. So all this fuss is not only about Cadbury being afraid of fussy people suing them for wrong labelling, they'd also understandably like to avoid the risk of some unsuspecting allergic dying from eating a creme egg. It's a much more serious risk than the coffee at McDonald's thing, so I'd say in this particular case the fuss is justified to a certain extent, even though it seems like a joke to us non-allergics.

[Juni Ori]

Well, you are right there, AJ. Nut allergy can be lethal, so its seriousness shouldn't be underrated. However, those who are allergic to such food usually are very careful what they eat - it's after all their life in hand.