"Structure" - that is a good word for it. Kinda like a semantic structure. They call them programming "languages" for a reason, because they too have syntax, grammar and structure.
True!
When you see a trial like this, does any of your legal background from back then help at all?
Honestly, not really. I did take Criminal Procedure, but a lot of what I remember was being confused between how much weight I should give the Model Penal Code vs. state-side precedent vs. state statutes. My top class was [federal] Civil Procedure, Torts, etc. I enjoyed that a LOT.
The most way my learning helped my understanding in the long term was just realizing how nuanced everything is. I learned that the lay person hugely over-simplifies things, like: "I could sue you for that", or "You signed ___ waiver, you could never sue me for this" - "always", "never", etc...
For Torts I learned how logical and sensible it really is. I came into it thinking (like many people), "there is too much suing going on, everyone wants money". During Torts I learned that damaging incidents that occur between people almost always have costs. You cannot get away from or erase that. Tort law simply seeks to determine
who should pay that unavoidable cost which already exists, and thus is inherently fair on principle.
For crim law I realized how important elements of a crime is. That every crime has elements. They must all be met. Defense comes down to undermining one of those elements as best as you can. Most have a required mental state - and for those that do, the mental state is extremely important, but even that concept is significantly weakened by the categories like willful blindness and statutory liability (like Speeding).
I also learned to carefully watch for grounds for appeal, and the difference between findings of facts vs. findings of law--the latter being (usually) the only grounds for taking it to an Appeals court. But--that being an enormously huge category, given the body of law (just procedure alone even!) Any good defense attorney is making a long list of possible grounds for an appeal, and appeals courts generally will defer to the trial court's findings of fact (a bit scary, actually).
I think I would have ended up in some line of work that focused a lot on the interplay between Contracts and Torts. Possibly just another underpaid, average suit! Ha ha. I sometimes wonder if I like law so much that I should go back and try for some hideous, cheaper, online degree--just because I'd love to actually practice it, no matter how much people laughed at my diploma. Maybe someday!
I think most of my concepts of criminal justice fairness that I went in with, I retained. For example, I think the punishment should always fit the crime--JUST the crime, and not anything else. This is why I am very against "hate crime" laws. I simply feel it's inappropriate to punish people based on what they were thinking at the time--with the narrow exception for their intent to actually commit the crime...but not the detailed 'why' (etc), it's just too big a category to open up! (IMHO). Hate crimes is an example of states simply adding more criminal liability to the books as a response to people's failure to enforce existing crimes. You don't need a hate crime for punching someone in the face for specific reasons. Just start universally and consistently enforcing laws prohibiting people from punching others in the face! Then all victims will get equal justice for equal suffering.
