Recent comments in /f/nottheonion

Psychomadeye t1_jayuru7 wrote

For me (and my family) it's because as Americans we walk around a lot in Europe when we find out something is just a 2 mile journey instead of a 20 mile journey. In addition we're there to see stuff and walk through streets in cities that aren't at all like ours. Every time I go to Europe I end up walking over a hundred miles a week.

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Law_Student t1_jayskqz wrote

This is one of those situations where the way the law works doesn't always make sense to someone who isn't immersed in it.

The critical issue here is that "I broke the law to bring attention to climate change" isn't a legally recognized defense. It was the judge's job here to exclude it as an irrelevant attempt to influence the jury with emotion rather than a legal or factual argument. That's because the way the system is set up, the jury is supposed to consider only the narrow issue of whether the accused committed all the elements of the crime or not.

The law is set up the way it is; it doesn't care why someone did something in a case like this, only whether or not they did it. The judge's job is to follow the law. The judge had no choice but to exclude.

You might think that's wrong, and reasonable people can argue that point. But that's a question for the legislature. The judge doesn't have the freedom to make that call without exceeding their authority.

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