Prisoner not allowed to play D&D

[Starbuck_II]

Courts can appoint attorneys for indigent plaintiffs. They don't generally have to, but they can.

There can be very good reasons for it. If a case is important, you want it done right.

But that isn't always true if they have no expereince in the subject matter. I don't think the guy knows about D&D: which helps if the guy is to represent your side.
The best the guy can do is best represent his rights while ignorant.

 

[Cadfan]

But that isn't always true if they have no expereince in the subject matter. I don't think the guy knows about D&D: which helps if the guy is to represent your side.
The best the guy can do is best represent his rights while ignorant.

I know. I can't really speak to why the attorney didn't know basic facts about D&D while litigating a case related to D&D. He was probably a lot of help with the actual rules of court, though.

 

[Mournblade94]

Factually speaking, this is not correct.

So then correct with facts. Why is it not factually correct?

Back it up.

 

[Mournblade94]

And the worst type of inmate is a bored inmate. We always tell the new staff: never underestimate the cunning and planning skills of even the most dumb appearing inmate. They have nothing but time to come up with stuff. That's why we try to keep them busy (ideally with something productive). Knowing they have a TV available may be upsetting to someone on the street, but for the officers (BTW...they hate being called "guards") TV is the greatest addition to corrections ever.

Then I withdraw my comments about prisoners having entertainment. OK it makes sense to give it to them for the guard's sake.

Still, if you made them break rocks all day, you would have tired instead of bored ones. That I imagine could be equally desirable, well as long as you let them sleep.

 

[Cadfan]

So then correct with facts. Why is it not factually correct?

Back it up.

I can't on this forum. Suffice to say, compare to Europe. It shouldn't be too difficult to do online. I can't go into much in the way of details without simultaneously getting too political and too grandma-unfriendly for this site.

 

[Mournblade94]

I can't on this forum. Suffice to say, compare to Europe. It shouldn't be too difficult to do online. I can't go into much in the way of details without simultaneously getting too political and too grandma-unfriendly for this site.

Fair-enough I suppose, though I don't know where the grandma unfriendly part comes in.

 

[Stoat]

Anybody who can't afford an attorney is entitled to have one appointed in a criminal case. However, this is a civil case, and the inmate did not have an absolute right to have an attorney appointed to him. In my experience, requests by inmates for appointed counsel in civil cases are routinely denied.

Apart from the novelty factor that this case presents, it doesn't seem particularly unusual or exceptional to me. I'm surprised that the plaintiff had an attorney appointed to him. Has anyone looked at the District Court docket? Was this plaintiff represented there?

 

[Mort]

Just as a clarification, I was listening to the oral argument and the attorney appointed for it was not a public defender but an attorney form Mayor Brown which are a pretty heavy hitting law firm (probably through their pro bono program so no idea how much time he actually had to devote to it). Haven't checked who the trial (as opposed to appelate) attorney was though.

A couple of words about court appointed attorneys:

Often when a defendant proceeds pro se, the courts will appoint an attorney to assist him. That attorney basically sits there like a relief pitcher- the defendant does everything himself unless and until the defendant asks him for help. Only in the rarest of cases will a judge interrupt proceedings and insist that the appointed attorney step up. Up until that point, though, its the defendant's choice & responsibility to defend himself.

In addition, I did a brief stint in the Dallas Public Defenders' Office. The people I worked with were knowledgable and competent attorneys...and extremely overworked.

Sometimes, they had to argue a case with only a couple of hours of familiarity with the case file.

They generally know what they're doing, but they may be so overstretched that they make errors, so you really only want a public defender if you can't come up with the $$$ for a private one.

 

[Blastin]

Then I withdraw my comments about prisoners having entertainment. OK it makes sense to give it to them for the guard's sake.

Still, if you made them break rocks all day, you would have tired instead of bored ones. That I imagine could be equally desirable, well as long as you let them sleep.

I can't tell you how many of us working in corrections would love to implement just such a work detail...

 

[Hairfoot]

I think many posters have made compelling arguments that, while D&D is unlikely to promote or cover gang activity, in a prison environment the rules always need to err on the side of staff safety.

It's a bit worrying, though, that so many people believe prison is a place of punishment, when the grounding principle of gaol in a free society is that people are confined there as punishment, not for punishment.

The goal is to segregate individuals who may do harm of some sort while exacting payment for their acts through - solely - the removal of liberty.

If the goal of imprisonment is revenge, democracies could save a lot of time and money by cutting 20-year sentences down to 3 years, but beating the prisoners senseless each day. Or we could cut out prison time completely and just amputate hands or feet or ears, or kill convicts in a slow and painful manner...you see where the revenge principle leads.

If the goal of imprisonment is to safeguard the community and attempt to rehabilitate prisoners for release, I don't see why D&D, properly supervised, is any more objectionable than baseball or snooker or poker played for toothpicks. Banning a prisoner from D&D as a punitive measure is just a mild form of torture and should be recognised as such.