I'm beginning to accept that the United States is a bigger cesspool than I had previously thought. I guess the Canadian-style welfare state wins again.

Nice thinly-veiled ad hominem. I wish these were infractible.

Except you're still ****ing Canada.

Ad hominem is a very specific logical fallacy, not "teacher he was mean to me!"

incorrect, sir. the weakness of your argument had nothing to do with you as a person.

Suppose you argued that you should always raise Aces preflop. If I said "that is wrong because you aren't a professional poker player" that is an ad hominem attack. I am not attacking your claim, I am attacking you.

If I said "no, you should fold them preflop sometimes" and showed you end-game satellite scenarios where the EV clearly dictates a fold, that is attacking your argument.

In this post, i attacked your (implied) claim that judges don't already have a 1/3 share in running the country by arguing that they do, in fact, have a 1/3 share in running the country. The aftermath, specifically the insult, is irrelevant.

And yes, the three branches of government are a basic fundamental of elementary school social studies curricula.

I meant "personal attack."

I did not claim that judges do not control a portion of state power, nor did I imply it. I made a joking response saying that judges should solely run the country and you made a pathetic, intellectually dishonest attack. Apparently you get off on that, given this post.

And now I'm going to step out of this before I get myself infracted.

Things must be very different in Canada. I practiced law in the U.S. for 12 years. In that time I probably practiced in front of over 100 judges in state and federal courts. Among the gems that came from these brilliant purveyors of logic:

1. I once watched a judge stop the cross-examination by defense counsel of a police officer by saying, "Mr. X, what are you doing? We do not impeach the credibility of police officers in my courtroom."

2. I once watched a judge condition granting bail to a criminal defendant on the defendant's waiver of his right to a speedy trial.

3. I once saw a federal judge use leading questions to rehabilitate the credibility of the government's star witness after the witness was shown by the defense to be lying.

4. I once had a federal appellate court steal about $110 million in property from my client. The property had been awarded to my client by a previous appellate court, and with no appealable issue in front of it regarding title to the property, a later appellate panel reversed the previous court and awarded title to the property to "the public" (which, needless to say, was not a party in the case).

5. I once saw a judge respond to a hearsay objection by saying, "overruled; yes, it is hearsay, but it is interesting hearsay," and then go on to convict the defendant on the basis of that exact testimony.

6. A prosecutor once accidentally sent me in discovery correspondence between him and the judge (to which I had not been contemporaneously privy) in which the prosecutor convinced the judge to rule against my pending motion.

7. When I was a prosecutor, I once saw judge do the following: In the summer, he forgot to enter a standard condition of probation when he convicted a guy. In the fall, the defendant was brought before him for violating the non-existent order. The judge, seeing that he had forgotten to order the condition, entered it in the fall, backdated it to the summer, convicted the defendant of violating the order, and then incarcerated the defendant.

Only in the last of these examples was the judge disciplined (he was permanently removed from the bench).

I don't know how things are in Canada, but everywhere I have practiced, a significant majority of judges are mere tools of the government, and a significant minority have been affirmatively corrupt in their favoritism for the government.

Relying on judges to correct the sort of prosecutorial overreaching we see in the OP is a huge mistake, at least everywhere I have practiced. I can think of only maybe 3 judges that would quash this subpoena.

Poast moar please.

Mpethy, you should do a TR on the your experiences as a lawyer. Why did you decide to leave the profession of law?

Wow this would be super awesome. Ever thought of writing a book?

+1 on the plz to be posting more.

Oh. "Empathy." I was reading it as "M. Pethybridge." Seemed very British.

I may have to revise my position on this:

So cliffs of the article: The guy was given 60 bucks for taxi fare (only cost about 20), apparently for implicating himself for a murder.

Now, if the prosecutors can really prove that, then I think further investigation of the group is warranted.

sweet so the going rate for confession to murder is 40 bucks.

Well to a crack fiend lol

Chris Rock explains the prices for a crack fiend
Apparently this applies to murder as well.

No, I'm just lazy. The latter is correct.

Depends what you mean by "investigation."

I'll provide some context. Prosecutors routinely pay informers and cooperating witnesses. Not only do they pay cab fare (which may well have been the only intent here), they sometimes provide an income to a witness for months or years, and sometimes just provide a lump sum award.

All such payments and cooperation agreements must be disclosed to the defense by the time of trial (and often this information is not provided until the eve of trial). But that does not entitle the defense to all materials in the prosecutor's files.

Similarly, the prosecutor in this case should be able to subpoena any information regarding payments made to the witness; obviously, any payments have the potential to affect the witness's credibility. But that still does not give them a right to all the information they reportedly sought regarding the students.

Simply put, subpoenas cannot be overbroad.

Seems a bit odd to say that they can investigate if they can prove the allegation (presumably the allegation that is to be, at least part of the investigation)