I object strenuously to the assumption that the lawyer’s abandonment of the client is a good thing. The Anglo-Norman legal system is adversarial at its root. The assumption on which the whole system is founded is that the truth will emerge in the conflicting arguments of the two sides. Even the most heinous criminal is entitled to a zealous defense - which means that defense attorneys need to work zealously for guilty and innocent alike. The defender is not the judge.
I found the original lawyer’s ‘attorney-client privilege and all; but nudge nudge wink wink’ interview to be rather tacky; but his decision to fire the client seems perfectly defensible.
It seems very, very likely that the officer was notably less than honest with his lawyer(and had him making public statements based on that). It isn’t a lawyer’s job to lie for you(though some offer the service), it is to present your case. I’m sure that this means repeating a clients’ lies without knowing it some of the time; but it’s not an obligation to do that if you realize you are being used that way.
The guy still has the right to a lawyer(and he has a new one, a specialist in hard cases, which is probably the lawyer he needs); but the right to a lawyer doesn’t make the first one you pick Thrice-oath-bound-unto-the-last-appeal-is-filed.
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Training, pure and simple. Police are trained to never drop their weapons. He dropped his against his training. That takes a conscious act.
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One of the levels of horrible irony of that list is that many, many of the factors the cite as causes for concern can be readily observed in the TSA themselves, and law-enforcement personnel generally. Except for maybe the beards.
Which is why it’s broken by design. Conflict and truth tend to hardly intersect, unless you happen to have a philosophy based upon conflict. For those who don’t, it comes off as petty and dystopian.
I had a public defender do this to me in court session! Guy basically said “I know X did it and is lying, so I cannot defend them”. It was rather surreal, and imparted a “rug pulled out” feeling.
His hair breaches international peace protocols if you ask me, never mind his culinary misdemeanours. You keep him. I think that’s best.
at least police in developing nations don’t feign moral outrage when offered a bribe. Not that it’s right, but how do you turn down a bribe for moral reasons, then around the next corner, shoot an unarmed person in the back while they are running away and be completely fine with framing said person?
Would it be okay if he said “banana-republic” (just look at it)? Or is that too norte-céntrico?
Petty and dystopian describe pretty everything I know about this system of government. Other than Sharia law, is anyone seriously proposing an alternative? Couldn’t be that hard to do better…
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