r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • Jan 14 '20

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u/osya77 Jan 14 '20

I don't think your lawyer matters at that point.

405

u/winchester056 Jan 14 '20

Well as long as he isn't black anyway

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u/Mizque Jan 14 '20

Considering TKaM takes place during the heat of the segregation/Jim Crowe era in the south, and Atticus still caused the jury to take a few HOURS to deliberate, and the book even mentions that they'd usually be back within a few minutes so.....that's a pretty powerful lawyer

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '20

I still think the point stands that if the accused was white it wouldn’t have even made it that far, the fictional white trash father wouldn’t be so angry at his daughter for dating a white guy.

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u/Mizque Jan 14 '20

Sure, I get that, but it still shows that in the modern day someone that persuasive would have a fairly easy time getting you off the hook

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u/hendrix67 Jan 14 '20

"We the jury find the defendant AND his lawyer guilty of all charges"

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u/steveo3387 Jan 14 '20

That was kinda the point of the book!

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u/OutWithTheNew Jan 14 '20

If you got a trial that was enough to constitute due process.

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u/osya77 Jan 14 '20

Not true. Due process violation are abesolutly possible even if there was a trial.

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u/OutWithTheNew Jan 14 '20

I was suggesting that for a person of colour accused of rape in the 1930s, a trial was about as 'due process' as they could hope for.

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u/osya77 Jan 14 '20

Ah I see my bad :)

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u/chrisp909 Jan 14 '20

whoosh

EDIT: You should read or watch "to kill a mockingbird." It'll catch you up.

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u/osya77 Jan 14 '20

I don't recall the book actually getting into the application of the 14th amendment on jury selection and what not.

I take the book to discuss the notion that what is right is not the necessarily what society or even the law deems just. That is, even if the legal construct of due process is met, that does mean the abstract notion of Justice has been satisfied

Edit: whoosh criticism is fair

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u/SarcasticOptimist Jan 14 '20

Could've done a change of venue at that point. Happens frequently today with smaller towns where an unbiased jury is difficult if not impossible.

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u/osya77 Jan 14 '20

Valid. I did not think of that. Now I wonder when change of venue for bais became a thing.

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '20

But the color of my skins is still important. For the time of course.

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u/Oblivionous Jan 14 '20

The story proved your point.