Let’s say a judge was bribed and convicted an innocent man. Later this was discovered. Would the judge face charges, what charges and who will be the suer? What about the person who executed the punishment, should he be found guilty of it? Will the person who was wrongly convicted be able to exact physical retribution on the judge and on the executor of the punishment?
I assume,we are talking about libertarian utopia, don’t we?
I’d say the suit would be brought by the wrongly convicted (or his advocate) against the judge. What do you mean by “the person who executed the punishment”?
Yes, libertarian utopia. The person who executed the punishment is the victim or his private defence agent.
I don’t see how can you sue a person merely for expressing his opinion about who he thinks is guilty.
if we are talking about legitimate judges (not imposed with force by a state), then their decisions are not “merely an opinion”. They would be liable.
If the judge was bribed and no one knew of it, well, failure to provide this information(seeing as it was crucial for the verdict) would be fraud.
The whole point of libertarianism is that there are no ‘special people’ for whom exceptions are made. The same rules apply to everyone.
Thanks. I guess I’m not sure what you mean by “punishment” though. Are you referring to restitution payments?
As AuctionGuy said, the judge is at least liable for fraud. The fact that he made a ruling which he believed was false, in order to derive a (monetary) benefit, turns the (implicitly coercive) restitution payment made by the wrongly convicted into a tort against him. Others involved may well be also liable, at least for negligence.
Fraud can be applied on exchange of property, yet no property exchanged between the judge and the complainants as far as I see. Besides how is that different from merely expression of opinion? If I express my opinion on certain subject am I also liable if someone kills a person because of this information? Don’t we give this way too much importance to words?
Judges - absent monopoly privilege and government subsidy - do not “convict” anyone, they simply act as arbitrators, facilitating settlement of disputes between parties seeking to settle their disputes. Any form of bribe would be a tortious act since it would be, as noted, fraudulent. However, it is as difficult to imagine an arbitrator who accepts bribes to make biased decisions as it is to imagine a hairdresser who accepts bribes to mess up people’s hair. It is difficult to imagine a bribe large enough to outweigh all potentially lost future revenue when it is discovered that the arbitrator is corrupt and no one ever consults him or her again.
Clayton -
Well the judge isn’t just some guy on the street giving you his 2 cents, he’s being paid for a service. Fraud can certainly be applied on providing services. If the judge had a sign outside his building that said “I am constantly accepting bribes”, he wouldn’t be guilty of fraud- and if you decide to use him anyway you get what you deserve. He has to tell his clients how he’s coming about his decision- if he lies to you by hiding the fact that he made his decision via bribe…I’m sure you see why that’s fraud.
Good point, AuctionGuy. The fraud in such a case concerns the services rendered. If the judge promises impartiality to the best of his ability, yet he actually took a bribe to render a pre-arranged conviction, then the convicted didn’t get what he paid for. Of course, that’s assuming the convicted paid for at least part of the court costs.
On another note: Eugene, would you consider it fraud if I knowingly made a false claim that you stole my car?
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I don’t think this would be fraud. Saying I stole your car is defamation, its like saying you are a pedophile. This shouldn’t be illegal to tell lies.
Let me put it another way. If I filed a court case against you, falsely claiming that you stole my car, do you think that would be fraud?
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Nope. You still just expressed your opinion of me and told this to another person who happen to make money from arbitration. Only if you made a contract with the arbitrator specifying that if you were found lying you’d pay compensation, only then will you be legally at fault.
There lies your answer. No one is going to go to any arbitrator that won’t guarantee his honesty in such a way- that’s a crucial part of the service. I’m going to guess thats what you meant by the last sentence, that the “you” who’d be found lying is the arbitrator.
Does a judge express his opinion or does he give an order? In the present system it is the latter, he orders a person locked up. It is the jury that merely expresses its opinion on the guilt and at most recommends a sentence.
In a libertarian society would a judge merely be someone who expresses an opinion? I suppose you could have courts like that which did not take care of the sentencing part and did not apply any force themselves, merely greenlighted application of force by anyone who believes in the justice of their ruling. But you could also have courts who employed people who did in fact apply force based on the sentence.
The point is that legal arguments and proofs are ultimately used to determine the terms of settlement by which property boundaries will be re-drawn. Let’s say you falsify evidence, perhaps you photoshop a picture of me lighting your barn on fire and use this false evidence to claim that I owe you $100,000. Now, the consequences of me simply balking and saying “I won’t pay!” are potentially deadly since I may eventually be outlawed if I simply refuse to acknowledge your false evidence. But if I go to court and fail to prove you have falsified evidence, I will be forced to settle for $100,000. It’s no different than if you stole $100,000 from me. It’s not just that it’s a lie, it’s that it’s a lie used in the justification of redrawing property boundaries. If I later succeed in proving that you have falsified evidence for the purpose of redrawing property boundaries, then you should be liable for defrauding me of my property. Even if you attempt to falsify evidence for the purpose of redrawing property boundaries, you should be liable for fraud.
If an arbitrator participates in the fraud with you, perhaps as a result of a bribe, then he is guilty of conspiring to defraud me of my property. Lying on the witness stand may or may not be actionable depending on the type and severity of lie but lying as a witness has always been considered a heinous offense under customary law. I expect that the punishments for falsifying evidence and lying as part of dispute arbitration would be severe in a free law market.
Note, however, that there would be nothing inherently unlawful about an arbitrator being biased. Perhaps some arbitrators are known to favor women over men or blacks over whites. If they can make a living then that’s just how it is. Arbitrator bias is not the same thing as participating in the falsification of evidence or lying in the process of formal settlement of a dispute.
Clayton -