That’s possibly the most evil sentence I’ve ever read on The Dope. You should be ashamed of yourself.
It’s also one of the most idiotic things too. Since when did human thought gain the power to objectively change reality? I must have missed the memo. Fuck, I’m Catholic and believe in prayer and I would never ascribe that level of blunt force to human willpower. And fuck you again for even indirectly relating such a thing to your twisted notion of vengeance.
I’m not defending the guy from the OP. He did a terrible thing. Still, that doesn’t make it ok to wish him death or pain, you fucked-up festering fountain of filfth. Repent or be fustigated!
It ultimately doesn’t matter whether it’s selfishness, careerism, or adherence to professional ethics. If a defense attorney enables a criminal to evade consequences for their actions, then I think it’s reasonable that they should feel shame over the fact. Likewise, if a prosecuting attorney (through careerism or professional zeal or whatever) gets someone sentenced to death or 30 years’ imprisonment or whatever, and that person didn’t actually commit the crime, I would expect them to be ashamed as well, and deservedly so. Adherence to professional ethics doesn’t absolve them of moral responsibility.
Hypothetically, if two defense attorneys both have perfect records of defending their clients, yet one’s clients all actually committed the accused crimes where the other’s clients were all innocent, should we regard those attorneys as serving justice equally?
Yet earlier you suggested that KarlGauss was wrong to imply that defense attorneys should feel guilty or morally ambivalent about defending their clients. That’s the remark I was commenting about.
Do you feel that the sentence in the OP was just and fair?
That’s what I thought too. However, technically the defense attorney himself didn’t ask about any specifics of the crime, so he didn’t know the guy was going to lie about anything. He simply allowed the guy to take the stand and answer the prosecuting attorney instead. Story here.
Well, that didn’t edit, did it? Bleh. Anyhoo, I see that I erred in my capsule account… the guy answered to the defense attorney’s questioning, rather than to the prosecuting attorney.
He’s got to be going for satire. Think of it in a Brass Eye style:
“Genetically, paedophiles have more genes in common with crabs than they do with you and me. Now that is scientific fact. There’s no real “evidence” for it but it is scientific fact.”
well, hell, why should they even be in the courtroom if the defendant is guilty of anything? Think of the savings! We could dispense with the whole defense side, unless, of course, the defendant was innocent of the charge. Hmm. well, no matter, since obviously prosecutors always get things absolutely correct (see: Duke Lacross Team, Innocence Project for excellent evidence of that).
This kind of willful ignorance of the American system of adversarial justice is a good argument for not allowing idiots like you to vote. You are a danger to the American way of life.
Wow. It took until post #12 for someone to have an appropriate reaction to this thread, and that was by DtC of all people.
The OP is somewhat off base in his opinions about defense lawyers. However for people to be jumping all over that without so much as a word about the outragiously light sentance or the little girl is just, well, sick.
It’s not willful, I assure you. Although your remarks have absolutely convinced me that I’m completely off base, and a lawyer should never feel anything but orgasmic joy when they successfully free people who have committed crimes.
Several posters have already commented on the oddity of this statement, but I have a serious question. I would honestly like to know where you learned this “fact”.
For example, say a defense attorney successfully defends a criminal by getting evidence excluded due to a warrantless search on the part of the police, then the people who should feel shame about this are the police who overstepped their authority. And, to take the current case as an example, if a defense attorney argues successfully for a light sentence for child rape, then the people who should feel shame are either the judge (who is under no obligation to accede to defense requests for a light sentence), and/or society and its legislators, which makes such a light sentence available for such a horrendous crime.
Well, our criminal justice system—rightly, in my opinion—places different burdens on the prosecution than it does on the defense. While even a person who committed the crime is entitled to a defense (unless you believe that anyone charged of a crime should automatically be convicted; do you believe that?), society and the law prefer that our prosecutors don’t seek convictions against people whom they know to be innocent. There is a difference between defending a man whom you know or suspect to have committed the crime, on the one hand, and prosecuting a man whom you know to be innocent, on the other. If you can’t distinguish between these two things, then we probably don’t have anything more to talk about, because it would be clear evidence that you’re incapable of any sort of rational analysis of this issue.
Provided that each did his or her job to the best of their ability, and broke no laws, i would answer that question with a tentative “yes.” Tentative because such a lame hypothetical completely excludes all of the particular factors that come into play in court cases, and that cannot be generalized. As i said above, if the defense lawyer gets the client a walk based on police breaking the law or failing to follow procedure, then it’s the police who have failed to serve justice, not the defense attorney. And if the sentence is too light, then it might be the judge or the lawmakers themselves who have failed to serve justice, not the attorney.
But arguing that some lawyers probably do feel moral ambivalence is not the same as arguing that they should. Again, if you can’t see the distinction here, we probably have little more to discuss.
What are you hoping for with this question? To somehow undermine my position by getting me to defend a child rapist?
No, i don’t feel the sentence was just and fair. Happy now?
But i still refuse to assert that any blame for the unfairness of the sentence should rest on the shoulders of the defense attorney.
I can’t see a problem with what thew attorney did in that case. Hell, the article explicitly notes how morally and ethically conflicted he was about the issue, going so far as to scour the legal books for help and also bringing the matter to the attention of the judge. But, in the end, he is obligated to defend his client in any way possible within the law. Again, if there’s something wrong arising out of that case, i don’t think it’s the defense lawyer’s fault. If he had done something illegal, or something contrary to professional ethics, i’m sure we would have read about it in the story. It’s a tragic situation, but it’s also the result of a system where—again, rightly in my opinion—we require not that the defendant prove his innocence, but that the state prove his guilt.
Well, i took it as self-evident that the sentence was too light. If you need me to say it again, just to satisfy your sense of outrage, i’m happy to help you out: The sentence was outrageously light for such a heinous crime.
As Dio said, don’t blame the lawyer just doing his job, slimy as he is- blame the system. Mandatory sentences for drug sales popped up pretty quickly under Reagan, surely someone in power now could have life sentences for this shit enacted pretty quickly- the question is why don’t they? I can’t imagine anyone voting against this.
And Heffalump and Roo, those great examples don’t count, becasue they ain’t 'Mericans
I have a question that (I think) is relevant to the discussion at hand. If a defendant does confess to his attorney that he’s guilty, yet refuses to plead guilty, how does one go about defending a known-guilty person at trial and attempting to get a not-guilty verdict? If you are the defense attorney, do you tell the defendant they have to get another attorney and advise them not to confess to that new attorney? Or do you truly stand up there and try knock holes in the case against them? Because I don’t know how someone can do that.
