Quote:
Originally Posted by SUBMAN1
Am I the only one here that thinks even $3500 is a bit excessive? She downloaded 24 CD's. She may not even have downloaded 24 CD's since the judge threw out the part about someone piping into her wireless connections. Maybe she is telling the truth? Maybe not?
But the point is, the punishment should fit the crime. That is the Constitutional law in this country. And if you can't prove beyond a reasonable doubt, then the possibly guilty must go free. In this case, that can't prove either.
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Yes, the judgement is excessive, but you're confusing civil penalties with criminal penalties. If Thomas-Rasset were being tried for felony copyright infringement, they wouldn't put her away for more than a few years in most cases, if even that. Doing otherwise would violate Constitutional protections, so you are correct about that.
But T.R. isn't being tried for a felony, she's being sued for damages in an adversarial law system, and that is a whole different ballgame. She doesn't even need to be found guilty on any charge beyond a reasonable doubt. Every year there are thousands of civil cases that are settled or judged on little more than hearsay evidence.
The civil law system in its' present form was more or less constructed by the legal industry, and it bypasses a lot of Constitutional restriction in the same way that Congress regularly does. It uses loopholes, exploits inadequately defined terms, and when all else fails, uses the state governments to do things that are constitutionally prohibited at the federal level.
I'll provide an example. For simplicity's sake, we'll assume that posts on this forum are under the juridstiction of a state-level government;
I write a post about you that is insulting. I allege that you are a communist and you kick babies or whatever. You take it to the court and file a suit. Let us say that you seek $100 in damages, and I refuse to settle.
So, we go to court and hire lawyers(and this is where it gets fun). Now we're not talking about a $100 judgement, we're talking about thousands and thousands of dollars, if not more. Unbeknownst to you, I also caused you mental anguish, distress, defamed your character, incurred legal fees, and caused medical complications by way of exposing you to stress, amongst other things. If you had a web-based business, and especially if customers read the post, I have also caused a number of other damages, but I don't want to get into that in this example.
Your lawyer, by bringing these allegations, need only prove that I wrote the post to bring me a world of pain. In the criminal system, this really isn't permissable. Many of those charges do not exsist, because I'd be getting punished twice for the same thing, but the civil system has no such restrictions. Furthermore, if it is proven that I wrote the post, I am not innocent until proven guilty, but the other way around. My lawyer has to find ways of getting me out of the other charges, which is nearly impossible because so many harms are of an intangible nature.
In the meantime, both of our lawyers are collecting hefty fees. And here's the real kicker. The court is required to use part of
your award to pay
my legal fees(if I cannot afford both) unless my lawyer works pro bono. If it didn't, I'd also be guilty of breach of contract through no fault of my own, and I'd be sued again. And it is so,
sooo, much more complicated than that once you get into cross-juridstiction offenses and counterclaims.
Anyways, the point is that if you are relying upon the Constitution to protect you or anyone else from excessive civil damages, don't. It has very little power there. I'm sure you hate the system as I do, and as much as most everyone hates lawyers, and that is why.
Personally, I think the legal code should be re-structured from the ground up based on a system of
pro se litigation, but that's a pipe dream.