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Comment by A_D_E_P_T | Hacker News Reader

> Yes, but what if you're the plaintiff/defendant and the other party has evidence in your favor? How do you get it before the court? That is what discovery is for.

What do you know of this evidence and how do you know about it?

> Honestly it just sounds like you had an easy case tried in China and a hard one tried in the US and are making some really broad assertions about the two legal systems based on a small sample size.

lol, no. It was actually the other way around. The US case was completely open-and-shut, whereas the Chinese case hinged on a matter of sensitive technology with military or "dual use" potential and it could have gotten ugly. I'll swear on whatever you like that I could hardly wait to get our US case in front of a US judge, but it was practically impossible. There are just so many absurd pretrial hoops to jump through. And all of them expensive.

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The Tesla ran into me while I was crossing the crosswalk and then took off. I was able to capture their license plate. We tracked them down and were able to ask them, but they denied that they had done this. I sued them in civil court to cover my medical expenses. I happen to know what Teslas keep a video log of these. The defendant wouldn’t provide it willingly until we went into discovery and they were compelled to provide it, which made my case.

This is but one of infinite examples of the other party having evidence helpful to the other side and harmful to themselves.

> I happen to know what Teslas keep a video log of these.

You provide the court with that information, and the judge presiding over the case can (and almost surely will, if you're correct,) ask for the logs. If they don't provide them upon request, they're hit with a adverse inference, just as they would be if they withheld documents in discovery.

It's plain common sense.

Now, it's true that "you don't know what you don't know" and that discovery can be an investigative process, but for the vast majority of cases it's totally unnecessary. And, in very many cases, discovery will actually impede access to justice. In court systems without discovery, judges tend to take on a slightly more investigative role, besides.

The 95 year old lifetime appointment judge with dementia and cataracts: “Cars have cameras you say? In my day we only had daguerreotypes. We wore an onion on our belts, the style at the time. Request denied.”

This is an old tired stereotype. Judges are perfectly able to handle complex novel concepts such as technology. The judge before the oracle c. google case learned to program to gain insight, for example.

>The judge before the oracle c. google case

Exactly. The US justice system works for people with money.

> What do you know of this evidence and how do you know about it?

It's called "discovery" for a reason. You ask for everything you think might be relevant.

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