Matt "TL;DR GINGER" Murdock (
notdaredevil) wrote2014-02-11 07:38 pm
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IC INBOX (MASKORMENACE)

"You've reached Matt Murdock, Attorney at Law. I'm not available right now, but if you leave a message, I'll get back to you at the earliest possible moment I can. And please, no texts."
→ audio → video
ok now that the health crisis is over
The less-than-satisfactory answer, I'm sure, is that it was all contextual. Some superheroes had a good relationship with law enforcement and the public. Some of them were public figures themselves, without any secret identity, and had the full cooperation of officials. So it's tricky. Some powers were more acceptable than others, as well. It didn't ever matter what Spider-Man did; someone would always think he was a menace. Spiders come with connotations, quite obviously, even if he only ever used his spider-powers for righteous ends.
For many years, there were no limits or requirements, except that you had a name, and a costume, and you did what you could to help people. I'm beginning to understand that must sound incredibly strange, but you have to understand, where I come from, there were all sorts of people getting powers every day from a number of sources, and not all of them were well-intentioned. There wasn't any infrastructure in place to deal with a man who makes himself robotic limbs and goes on a crime spree, except for costumed superheroes.
I think you can imagine how that wouldn't last forever.
glad you're feeling better! o/
I see. I'll be honest, I was hoping for something more... neutral. From the sounds of it, getting hit with superpowers sounds more like luck of the draw than any real choice. It's a little unfair to treat Spiderman more harshly just because people can't get over their arachnophobia.
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I'm sure Spider-Man would agree with you on that. But I'm afraid it is very much random. Even the subgroup of heroes known as mutants have no control over how that mutation will be expressed until it happens, and theirs has a basis solely in genetics, not in accidents.
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So it's genetic too. That must have made the scientific community go nuts trying to figure out how it all works.
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But I did call to ask about the law, and you've been helpful in that regard. You mentioned you work as a defense attorney?
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[To talk to ants.]
For about fifteen years now. My partner likes civil, and I usually went for criminal. And I was frequently involved in trials where the defendants were either superheroes or supervillains.
sorry for late, had to break for finals!
[ Though the part about him wandering off somewhere was starting to make this Dr. Pym sound pretty eccentric. ]
How was that? Defending known supervillains. I can't imagine it must have been very easy, with their infamy and record working against them. [ And then almost as an afterthought: ] Did you work with juries?
it's ok, my computer was broken anyway
It wasn't, but anyone is entitled to their fair trial, and they make convenient scapegoats. It wasn't unusual for one to be framed or falsely accused of a specific crime, even if they'd committed many others. [And then, with a heavy sigh, because he's heard before:] And yes. They were all jury trials.
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I take it that jury trials weren't very beneficial when it came to people with a record of villainy. How did the courts deal with eliminating bias in that situation?
[ It wasn't that he hadn't considered that juries might have that problem... but surely there were ways around it. ]
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[And Matt, if nothing else, was always good at putting up a very good case. Even when he had to defend the likes of Mister Hyde.]
Sometimes it wasn't so hard. There's more than one "villain" who was simply mentally ill. And keep in mind, these aren't really big, city-wide threats, generally speaking. For one reason or another those sorts of people rarely face trial.
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[ He has a feeling he can guess, but... ]
What kind of reasons might that be?
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[It's going to be hard for people to keep secrets. Or find things to do. He's not sure how this is going to play.]
Honestly? Sometimes, they're just never caught. Or they're caught, but for some reason or other, it never comes to trial. Some of them have diplomatic immunity. Some of them have no legal status. Some break out. Some just...disappear into a system, I suppose. Or disappear somewhere along the way, and there are so many, it's hard to keep track.
[Let's be real, S.H.I.E.L.D. would probably do that if they could get away with it.]