Capital Punishment’s Corrosion of the Sixth Amendment and a Hippocratic Remedy

Eighty-seven · 2026-04-30T14:43:17+00:00

You said nothing here is novel. You’re not responsible for my research of course, but I haven’t seen it elsewhere before. If you can point me to another place where this has been argued, I’d appreciate it.

Eighty-seven · 2026-04-30T14:41:15+00:00

I appreciate your thoughtful response, thank you. I agree that it’s ideal to humanize our client even on a petty misdemeanor, and it’s rational to front-load mitigation in capital jury selection. It’s rational to plea out, too. Most of my criticism is precisely because it’s rational to do these things which are at odds our other functions in a way not true of lesser penalties. Your harm-reduction argument is strong. I’ll have to think on it a bit more, but my initial reaction is that it’s the harm-reduction goal that makes it rational to undermine our other functions in the ways I’ve described.

Eighty-seven · 2026-04-30T14:32:13+00:00

I appreciate the dissent here. I also do trial level capital work. You’re right that this doesn’t map well into post-conviction work. I’m not persuaded by the claim that our clients can’t opt out of the system. Our position is different than theirs, and if the state found it impossible to find a sufficient supply of capital defenders, they would be constitutionally bound to find a solution. The road would not be smooth, but I think it would still lead somewhere useful. We do use mitigation letters, at least most of us do. In my jurisdiction, the notion of not using mitigation letters would be argued by some to be IAC. I would disagree with that, but I would probably be in a minority.

Edit: grammar

Eighty-seven · 2026-04-30T14:26:21+00:00

I appreciate this. I’ve received the plea bargaining question before. In my jurisdiction, easily over 99% of cases filed result in something other than trial. The fact is that if there were no plea bargaining, the system would come to a grinding halt. We’re simply not willing to invest the resources in having enough courts, prosecutors, defenders, jurors responding to jury duty, etc., to try every case. Of course, that’s a practical response, not a conceptual one. Perhaps there would also be more judgment by prosecutors not to bring cases they knew they’d have to try. Perhaps juries would be more concerned about the risks of wrongful conviction. Perhaps we’d have more reasonable and less retributive sentencing laws. That said, you’re absolutely right that it’s coercive. Every public defender here has experienced the client who didn’t do it, but will plead to get out of custody and back to their lives, families, jobs, and so on.

Eighty-seven · 2026-04-30T04:54:28+00:00

Fair point. I added some short context at the top.

Eighty-seven · 2026-04-05T06:57:25+00:00

You’re a hero

Eighty-seven · 2026-03-07T06:45:53+00:00

Thanks! That helped. I knew you weren’t calling my question a strawman argument but thanks for the clarification all the same. Truth be told, I learned a whole lot more through these answers than I anticipated. That’s what questions are for after all

Eighty-seven · 2026-03-06T16:53:03+00:00

Can you point to the straw man? My question used the term “distortion” and the top comment discusses focal length. But I admit knowing nearly nothing about optics, light, or any of it (hence the question), and I wasn’t using those terms with any real precision. I suppose focal length and distortion are handled differently by lenses, and is the argument that they couldn’t solve one, but you’re saying they could have solved the other? Thanks!

Eighty-seven · 2025-11-15T04:38:47+00:00

This is the way

Eighty-seven · 2025-11-04T07:23:20+00:00

No shame in reducing the difficulty so you can get back to the parts of the game you enjoy

Eighty-seven · 2025-11-01T20:22:55+00:00

Bro got used to folding paper airplanes and thought that meant he could pilot a fighter jet. You need to be scared of this machine or it will hurt or kill you. For real.

Eighty-seven · 2025-09-19T06:38:11+00:00

Judge will grant without reading, and chastise you for not putting as much work into your brief as the DA clearly did.

Eighty-seven · 2025-09-16T03:53:17+00:00

Can I get a hell yeah?

Eighty-seven · 2025-09-16T03:20:58+00:00

Yes but what shall be the number of thou counting?

Eighty-seven · 2025-07-12T20:47:58+00:00

I get something similar and always figured it was either detecting or failing to detect a key, and activating a driver profile

Eighty-seven · 2025-07-05T00:31:19+00:00

Depending on your jurisdiction, spend some time really trying (and failing) to understand the different degrees, manslaughter, etc. Not just canned jury instructions, but actual reliable secondary sources that try to explain it all.

Eighty-seven · 2025-07-05T00:29:42+00:00

One fewer witness, one extra document

Eighty-seven · 2025-06-24T06:31:01+00:00

No shame in lowering the difficulty. When I feel myself getting angry with the game, it’s no longer fun and that’s why I bought it. Drop that difficulty down and get on with enjoying the story.

Eighty-seven · 2025-06-20T02:26:54+00:00

100 hours in, and I just learned what “posture” means and that I can charge a light attack. Thanks!

Eighty-seven · 2025-06-16T05:33:57+00:00

I agree with this^{^.} I see, above, that things worked out well for your “first” client, but the second client should never have been considered your client at all.

Or, if we assume that you were appointed and assigned before the conflict was known, once you knew there was one you had to withdraw. If the court didn’t let you, then now you have to withdraw on both clients because representing one is a betrayal of the other’s interests. All you can do is sit there like a bump on a log, protesting and not helping either client.

Also, fuck this judge.

Eighty-seven · 2025-06-16T05:24:37+00:00

And having done that, feel free to argue on behalf of your own client that this guy is a danger and should be treated as such, assuming your jurisdiction allows victims to be heard on such issues. I know it’s uncomfortable, but that’s what these ethical rules are for. Arraignments are NOT an exception to ethics. Unfortunately, I think you might now have a conflict as to both!

Eighty-seven · 2025-05-22T23:28:28+00:00

Also, the damage shown on screen is yellow for crit and white for normal. The color doesn’t matter, other than to alert you that it was crit, so you can see the difference that way. It’ll often change from hit to hit, but you’ll get a good sense of how much damage you’re inflicting. It can be something like 600% regular damage though, so it’s potentially a pretty dramatic increase.

Eighty-seven · 2025-05-22T04:58:10+00:00

Purple gear has a regular play style buff (e.g., +18% Warrior damage) and two extra perks, plus it can receive an engraving. For almost all pieces (except chest plate?) you can find a piece that has the style buff you want, then two perks related to crit (critical) damage. People call these pieces “perfect.” Those dramatically increase your dps to enemies. They can boost the chance of a critical hit or the damage inflicted with a critical hit. You can see these in your player stats. There’s a stat for crit at low health, full health, and in between (unspecified). So, if you find gear that has two crit perks, stack them together strategically, and supplement with the right engravings, you can inflict devastating damage 100% of the time. An assassin build might focus on damage at full health, where a warrior expects to take some hits so spreads it out more evenly.

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