I’d imagine a retrial would have to happen, or at least a new jury. I don’t see how that makes it worse for the victim, probably the same potential outcome with a different lawyer.
But the argument you’re making is “Won’t they just pick another hangman if I refuse?” This is not an argument that convinces me to be a hangman.
I’d rather be disappointed all the time than live in a false paradigm where become good and just by altering the definitions of good and just.
If you don’t see how another trial, raising the possibility that their attacker might be found innocent, with the victim put on the stand again in the new trial, and with the events recounted yet again in court would make things worse, you might want to think about that a little while longer.
So a “good person” violates clear and long standing ethical guidelines that are central to their profession? Undermining the constitutional rights of American citizens for the sake of their personal comfort? Ignoring the central purpose of a defense attorney, and the net public good of a proper defense for everyone?
John Frikin Adams defended the perpetrators of the Boston Masacre. And got most of them acquitted. He later claimed it was the most important thing he’d ever done. And that dude served as president and helped frame the constitution. Ideologically this concept, fair defense for everyone, is absolutely foundational to the frame work of rights our country is built on. Among lawyers its considered their most sacred obligation.
Quit before the cross examination and it’s the same thing. She crossed the victim and the defendant got off. Same result. I’m not suggesting she quit AFTER her cross examination. She ascertained the guilt of her client early on. She then DECIDED to use discrediting tactics and not fact finding tactics on the victim.
Your problem is you think our structure is part of the definition of “what is good” so anything not in service to supporting the established system must be anti-good.
“best available option” Vs. “Good”. You just walked this back to the original argument.
You’re using an unrealistic standard for what a humane person serving as a defense attorney should do for Clinton’s case. You’re then dismissing the psychological impact on the victim of the defense attorney muffing the case raising the possibility their attacker would be freed. And for what? So that a person who would not be likely to bring comfort to the victim could potentially traumatize the child further both in visiting them and in putting the guilty verdict in jeopardy.
I don’t like Clinton, and I don’t think she’s a great candidate, and I don’t think she’ll be a great President, but if you’re going to find things to critique her for, her doing her job correctly as a defense attorney, and not making an irresponsible choice as a defense attorney to visit a victim whose attacker she defended (potentially putting the child in greater trauma for many reasons) isn’t a compelling way to approach things.
If you’re willing to flush however many years of law school down the drain, then yes, you probably can withdraw and be disbarred for it (and then the defendant gets a mistrial and a new lawyer, and the victim has to go through the drama of the trial all over again).
I’m pretty sure, if not on Day 1 then certainly in the first semester of Criminal Law, that the instructors will say, “Look. Your job is not to determine who is guilty and who is innocent; it’s to represent your client’s interests to the best of your ability. Even the guilty deserve the best possible defense, and the benefit of every technicality. If you can’t deal with that, there’s the door.”
You shouldn’t be deciding, after you pass the bar, that you’re unwilling to stand up and fight for the most loathsome people on the planet, because that’s what you’re sworn to do. That’s what the system of laws is there for: the defense has to make the prosecution prove every element of the crime, each beyond a reasonable doubt. To do otherwise is to risk sending (more) innocent people to jail.
There’s a distinction here between ethics and morals: ethics being what is expected behaviour from a professional, and morals being what is expected of, as you call it, a “good person.” 99% of the time, your ethics will, if not agree with, then at least not contradict, your moral beliefs. But here’s a case where it’s not so clear, and then you have to make the decision: do I do the right thing as a lawyer, or do I do the right thing as a good person?
If you choose the latter, then you shouldn’t be in that profession. And maybe that means that the members of that profession aren’t “good people.” But when that job is essential to the correct functioning of the rule of law, then you have to have someone doing that job.
Personally, I think that professionals (doctors, lawyers, police, et al.), should put their morality into a little black box every day when they put their uniform, and act according to the ethics of their profession. If you’re a doctor who thinks abortion is always a sin, you should still be willing to put that aside and save a woman’s life. If you’re a policeman who thinks that #BLM is a bunch of thugs, you should be able to put your uniform on, march down the street to ensure that the protesters are protected, and then go home satisfied that you did your job to the best of your ability.
So, yes, a defense attorney should do everything in her power to discredit a witness, if that’s the best representation that the lawyer can provide under the law. That’s her job, and she should have known that this was her job well before she took an oath to do it.
And if you have an alternative that doesn’t mean that more innocent people are going to be wrongly convicted because the victim can’t be effectively cross-examined by the defense, I’d like to hear it.
The attacker WAS FREED.
If you are going to interview a 14 y/o rape victim that you specifically believe was actually a victim are you going to be hostile to them in open court, are you going to use language you know intentionally obscures the facts? I’m not an automaton. I’ll fuck the system and myself before I’d do that. Her desire was to be successful in that courtroom, that is a personal desire. She argued passionately in front of the jury and hammered that kid. Read the transcripts. At the very least she could have phoned it in like a human being not a machine in service to a system and her own future.
If that’s really is an unrealistic expectation for how a good person behaves then I’m glad to be mortal and temporary.
Eventually. After they were found guilty and served a year in jail, four years of probation, and I assume were put on a sex offender registry.
see above:
I hate the rhetorical device of beginning an explanation with “Let’s be honest…”
So if I don’t agree with your views I’m not honest? Happy we were able to get that out of the way.
Conjecture.
“Perfect is the enemy of good.” What you’re expecting is entirely unrealistic, it isn’t good, it isn’t based in the reality of how the courts work, and you’re asking to be lied to and you’re asking to be disappointed. Pretty sure the idea that we have defense lawyers who phone it in is a bug, not a feature of the system.
If Hillary Clinton had defended a guy (for any crime) and gone with her personal judgement that he was likely guilty. Softballed the defense in the way your suggesting. He was convicted. But later proved innocent. You, and everyone else, would be instead complaining that she had violated her duties as a public defender.
And that’s something that happens incredibly often in our criminal justice system. Its one of those major tent poles of the criminal justice reform we keep hearing about. And the thing is that’s exactly the same failing on the part of an attorney that you’re proposing Clinton should have actively undertaken. Same thing. Whether it leads to a guilty man going to jail. An Innocent man going to jail. A guilty man walking free. Or an innocent man being exonerated. Regardless of the outcome. It still represents a fundamental disregard for the right to fair representation.
Generally speaking it isn’t in anyway “good” to subsume fundamental rights to ones personal feelings or beliefs. Even when the results make us uncomfortable.
ETA: In fact subsuming one’s ideals, preferences, and ideology to higher ideals as Clinton did. Is exactly what we’re referring to when we say “public service”. We generally celebrate people for it.
Then I hope you don’t mind me saying: I hope that you are never put in any position of any importance. If your response to any crisis of conscience is “bring the whole, imperfect system crashing down rather than let one (admittedly despicable) person be left unpunished,” then you have a seriously distorted sense of proportion.
The needs of the many must outweigh the needs of the few, and the needs of the many, when it comes to the rule of law, are that “innocent until proven guilty” and “due process of law” and “effective assistance of counsel” are hardwired into the system. And if this means that a few people are harmed by a repeat offender that was previously acquitted because their lawyer did their damned job properly, then that’s just a flaw of an imperfect system with those particular features. The flaws of an imperfect system without those features are much worse.
It’s bad enough that the Republicans “pivot” trying to deflect every criticism of Trump and put it on Hillary but when people who are not Republicans do it it just gets to be ridiculous. This isn’t about Hillary. It’s not about Bill. It’s about Donald Trump and his rapetastic attitude towards women.
The 6th Amendment attacks are a play to the base as much as anything. It is safe to attack defense attorneys when your base can’t imagine that they could someday be falsely accused of a crime.
I’m from Norway. A few years back, we had a massacre (it was on the same day as Amy Winehouse died, so you may not have heard of it). The man responsible was arrested still holding his gun, with massacred teens all around him. He shot and killed 69 people, most of them under 25. The youngest was fourteen. There was no question about his guilt.
His defense attorney wasn’t sure if he wanted to take on the job. He asked his wife (a nurse) who told him that if [the terrorist] had been brought to her hospital with gunshot wounds, she would not avoid doing her job because she didn’t like what he had done. She asked her husband if he could.
A defense attorney’s job is to defend the accused. Yes, even if they are guilty. Because both our countries’ justice systems are made up by imperfect people, and this is considered the best way to balance it so least harm possible is done. Blaming lawyers for doing their job is, to me, madness. If you are against Chelsea Manning, would you want her lawyer to be arrested for treason for defending her? Or the other way around, the prosecutor for accusing her?
It’s not the defense attorney’s job to find the truth. That’s the job of the COURT. The defense attorney’s role in those proceedings is to make arguments on behalf of their client.
We already live in a society that imprisons more people than any in the history of the world. Defense attorneys are one of the few checks on that power.
Welcome back
