Given this insider's perspective, Ted, is there any chance that you may have access to, or know how to gain access to, records that would clarify the civil suits mentioned by wow? It is civil suits of this sort that have contributed more to a sense of astonished disgust at the US legal profession, at least from an outsider's perspective. The odd instance of jury nullification, like the two shocking decisions in the Rodney King and OJ criminal trials, are less of a threat to the reputation of lawyers than the apparent absurdity of judgements like those mentioned by wow. Here in NZ, the perception of the law in the States is simple: "You can sue for everything, and win." Even from 10,000 kilometres away, US lawyers are held in low esteem largely because of this perception. That, and the naïf misunderstanding that "The Law" is about upholding Justice.
Max--
I certainly have a some access to legal things like that, having at one time been a paralegal, but finding those lawsuits is the next thing to impossible. When I first saw the cases Ann presented, I googled the names given and came away with zilch. There are quite a few cases that show up if you google the name of a plaintiff or respondent, but there's no way that I know of to systematically search all courts of record everywhere to try to find those particular cases. One would need the name of the respondent, the court, and hopefully a docket number.
One of the things about juries that many people do not realize is that jurors are not arbiters of law, they determine what the facts are. Take a criminal trial, for instance. If a jury finds you guilty, they have merely agreed that the fact of your guilt has been established beyond a reasonable doubt. They do not establish whether the law that makes a particular act an offense is valid. That's what judges are for.
You mentioned jury nullification. Yes, that does happen, though I question whether it happened in the OJ case.
BUT! If an attorney in closing arguments mentions to the jury that they should acquit because the underlying law is a bad law the judge will be all over her like white on rice. That's a big no-no. It would almost certainly be a matter for the judge to consider as contempt of court, and I suspect it might even lead to consideration of disbarment if the abuse was flagrant enough (or repeated).
As to the perception in NZ, yes, anyone can sue for anything. But with rare exceptions the plaintiff does not prevail unless there's a preponderance of the evidence establishing liability on the part of the respondent.
I could in theory put together a class of Adams fans and sue you for denigrating your namesake. It would go at least as far as docketing the case, but a judge would almost certainly throw the case out as frivolous and give me a very stern warning to never pull that crap again. But I probably would have to do it on my own, which is called proceeding pro se. I doubt if I could find a lawyer who would touch such a case. As to pro se things, I have personally seen instances where nut cases who filed one lawsuit after another were barred from filing a case in a particular judge's jurisdiction without having an attorney representing them. There have been quite a few instances like that to the north of here (I'm in the Denver area and am thinking of Montana and Idaho) where right-wing "patriots" file multi-million dollar liens against the property of anyone who disagrees with them, usually the sheriff, county prosecutor, and local elected officials. It's called abuse of process, and people do occasionally go to jail for it.
But in the final analysis I believe that what's wrong with our justice system isn't lawyers, it's greedy plaintiffs.
One last thought. In those cases Ann cited, it's remotely possible that those were default judgments, which are rendered more or less automatically when the respondent doesn't show up in court to put on a defense.
TEd
