Does one tells one’s attorney, “Yes, I beat Col. Mustard to death with a brass candle stick, but I ran the body through a wood chipper, ground the candle stick to fillings and mixed both in the concrete when I poured the floor to the new greenhouse.”
Does he reply, “Great, no body, no weapon, no case!”?
What’s the question?
–Cliffy
I assume the question is, “Can someone be convicted of murder even if the cops don’t have the body?”
Answer: yes.
Will the greenhouse help grow the buried materials into a gigantic, yellow cyborg with candles for arms?
IANAL, but I have a friend who is a defense attorney. He tells me that his job is to get the best possible treatment *under the law * for his client. That means showing that the prosecution did not prove *beyond a reasonable doubt * that the accused is guilty as charged.
Note the italics. Whether the client is in fact guilty or not is not the issue. He does NOT have to prove innocence. He does not, in fact, have to prove anything. He has to try to show that the case is insufficient. My friend tells me that virtually every client declares his/her own innocence and that this is irrelevant to him.
A lawyer probably does not want to hear what you did or didn’t do with the murder weapon, if any. He wants to see what the evidence is that the prosecution has to bring to the case. Then he wants to know of any evidence you have (or that he can find) that would show facts to the contrary. For example, if somebody SAW you clobber Col. Mustard, it probably doesn’t matter if anyone finds the candlestick or not. What might matter would be things like whether it can be shown that either you, or the “witness,” or Col Mustard were actually someplace else at the time. Or that the witness is unreliable. Or that the action was in a dark room and the witness his blind as a bat. Or was drunk at the time. Anything to cast reasonable doubt. You can probably think of other examples.
I once asked my friend if he felt bad that he had helped people who were probably guilty of bad stuff get away with it. He said no, for the following reasons. First, and this is a direct quote, “Lawyers gotta eat, too.” More seriously, a lot of the people he defended were accused of stuff that he honestly thought shouldn’t be criminal in the first place, so if he helped them escape being convicted of something that he thought wasn’t all that bad, no harm, no foul. Finally, he explained, suppose the person *was * guilty, and did get away with it. That simply meant the prosecution hadn’t done their job well. So either (a) the accused would realize he’d done a bad thing and would never do it again, and all would be well, or (b) he would repeat his badness and, if the police and prosecutors did their job properly they would build a better case.
Short answer to your question: No. He tells you to be quiet and answer his questions – and just his questions – truthfully.
Again, I’m not a lawyer; perhaps one will happen along shortly and point out all kinds of inaccuracies in what I’ve related.
Perhaps, but why?
If so, get thyself to a new attorney pronto.
Although I understand some jurisdictions may differ, in general, the prosecution needs neither a body nor a weapon to prove murder.
I *think * what the OP is asking is if the client admits that he committed the crime, can the attorney still claim that he is not guilty?
Well, if the client WANTS to plead guilty, then it’s all about bargaining for the lowest possible sentence.
OTOH, if he’s going to a lawyer because he does not want to go to jail, he will want to plead not guilty. Then it’s the lawyer’s job to show that the prosecution did not prove their case.
The first question the lawyer asks is NOT “Are you guilty?” Not if the lawyer is competent, anyway.
During the Bill Clinton trial or deposition or whatever it was, it was stressed that his lawyer was ethically bound to not let his client say anything the he - the lawyer - knew to be untrue. So if Clinton had said under oath that he had never smoked cigars with Lewinski but had admitted that he had to his lawyer (Mr. Bennett I believe) then his lawyer could have lost his license had he left the untrue statement stand unchallenged.
Criminal trials are different in that the defendant is not required to testify, so the lawyer doesn’t need to put himself in the position of knowing that his client is saying something untrue. Still, he can find himself in a situation in which he knows that a witness is lying. In that case I don’t know if he is ethically bound to do anything or not.
In my limited contact with defense attorneys, they tell me one usually says to them “Get me a deal.”
You can’t put someone on the stand to lie, or if you think they’re going to lie (oversimplification), but if you put them up there in good faith and they do lie, you don’t immediately have to challenge them on it in open court. Typically you ask for a recess and then tell your client to get back on the stand and correct his lie. If he won’t do that, you usually have to withdraw from the case. If the client won’t let you quit, you then usually have to petition the court to withdraw. Courts and the other side’s lawyers generally understand what this means even though the jury does not see it.
–Cliffy
To follow up on what Cliffy said, if your client lies on the stand and won’t recant, you can ask to withdraw. Mostly, the judge won’t let you if it’s in the middle of trial (because then, more than likely, there would have to be either a long delay while the defendant engaged new counsel who then had to get up to speed, or a mistrial).
Some jurisdictions permit another option. Because the lawyer has a duty of “candor to the tribunal,” the lawyer cannot present false evidence to the court. If the client insists upon testifying, and the lawyer knows that the client is planning to lie, the lawyer cannot participate in the client’s testimony. In other words, the lawyer has to ask the judge for permission for her client to testify “in a narrative.” The client simply gets on the stand and tells his tale, while his attorney sits at counsel table, not asking questions.
At closing argument, the lawyer cannot reiterate any false evidence, so if a client testified in a narrative, the lawyer cannot refer to the testimony at all. It’s a very bizarre sort of dance, but it’s done to permit the client to exercise his right to testify without the lawyer impugning her ethics. And, of course, everyone in the courtroom knows what’s going on.
Although I have never practiced criminal law, and even when I was in private practice went out of my way to avoid it, I do recall that the state of the law in Canada when I went to law school was that if a client admitted to his/her lawyer that they committed the crime then the lawyer was not then able to advance a defence that someone else was the perpetrator. I do not know whether there has been any changes in this area.
A good attorney does not have to verbally or overtly make the claim that someone else committed the crime: all he has to do is try to demonstrate that the evidence does not prove that his client did it. The jury draws its own conclusion-- that is, if the evidence doesn’t prove that carnivorousplant killed Col. Mustard, it had to be someone else.
Maybe we should wait for carnivorousplant to explain what the question is.
I believe it’s been answered.
If you admit guilt to your attorney, does he still agree with you to plead innocent?
The answer seems to be yes.
Does he say, “This is gonna cost more?” 
Hmm. I think the real question is why those of us with law degrees continue to try to be helpful and polite when people inevitably use our answers to make jokes about how mercenary and amoral we are. :rolleyes:
–Cliffy
It seems that there is a further, unspoken question, though. Something along the lines of “Why doesn’t this make the attorney an accessory after the fact?”. Or at least amount to an obstruction of justice?
The lawyer is there to protect one’s rights under the law. But one does not have an unlimited right to, well… get away with murder.
A person in a criminal trial doesn’t plead “innocent”, he pleads “not guilty”, and under the law, a person is considered not guilty until he’s found guilty in a court of law beyond a reasonable doubt. So, if someone confesses to his attorney, as has been said, the attorney can’t suborn perjury, but the prosecution still has to prove that the person did the crime he’s accused of, and the defense attorney can still ethically attack the prosecution’s evidence, and point out that the prosecution didn’t prove its case.
IANAL, but I would like to make a comment here. Criminal defense attorney’s are, in the USA, at least, an essential part of our due process. The defendant’s guilt is irrelevant to a vigorous and appropriate defense.
That is difficult for many people to understand. After all, if the guy did it, he should get what’s coming to him. However, ALL defendants have a right to due process. That seems to be a point missing from this discussion. It seems that some would say that, if the defense attorney knows the client is guilty, he/she should throw in the towel and tell the court to hang 'im. So, rather than a trial, the defendant is convicted by his one and only defender. That doesn’t sound like a good system, to me.
When we see a show trial like the OJ Simpson fiasco, it is all too easy to say that defense attorneys are only there to get their clients off. That, however, is not the case at all. The defense attorney is there to make sure that the state, with its nearly infinite resources, proves the case against the lonesome individual. In this way, defense attorneys protect ALL OF US from prosecution. If it weren’t for vigorous defense attorneys, any citizen could be brought up on any charges and thrown in the clink.
Defense attorneys don’t simply protect their clients; they protect all of us from the tyranny of the state.