First off, I don't believe _anyone_ should ever have a "court-appointed attorney." We don't believe people should get state-subsidized food, or shelter, or medical care, and so on....or at least most of us don't. So why the big exception for hiring attorneys? Second, nothing I have seen, and I've seen a lot, could've gotten McVeigh off. While I can understand what his mental state may have been, and thus can"understand" his motives, the facts are pretty clear that he did it. It is conceivable that a "dream team" costing many millions of dollars, a la Johnny Cockroach and the rest of the Simpson team, could have obfuscated issues, confused a jury, etc., and gotten at least a mistrial (meaning: more millions for them in Round Two). But why should I pay for such a team? I paid too much for the Stephen Jones/Jeralyn Merritt/etc. team as it was. At 12:00 AM -0700 8/20/97, Anonymous wrote:
We have already seen the results of Tim McVeigh wanting his government schill replaced--a big FUCK YOU. McVeigh's problem is not weakness, but lack of knowledge about the legal system and the quality of his legal representation. Unfortunately, I have no doubt that the government already has lawyers in place whose job thus far has been to gain McVeigh's trust, so that they can screw up his appeals, as well.
It's time to stop this "court appointed attorney" nonsense. If we as a nation want to change our legal system to one where the court appoints both sides of a case, prosecution and defense, as in many other countries, fine. But it's absurd to finance the hiring of defense lawyers. A better solution is to have relatively few things that are criminal, with no laws against most of the things that now clog the courts. And short trial, with none of the bullshit we saw in the Simpson case (or in any of the other show trials of late). And no court appointed attorneys. --Tim May There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws. Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!" ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."