Honor Amoungst Thieves (Legal Q)

Factual Questions
1

I haven’t done anything naughty yet, and have no intention to do anything in the future…but got to wondering, should I ever happen to commit a crime (in your state of choice) for which I am arrested and charged with, what should I tell my lawyer?

I know I’m well within my rights to tell them anything I damn well please, but would telling the truth create more problems then it would solve? Will most lawyers still work to defend you if you blatently admit your guilt to them? Are they allowed to represent you? Are there some limits as to the type of case they can present if they are aware of your guilt?

Also for the purpose of this thread I’ll assume that “IANAL” applies unless it explicitly otherwise :dubious:

also I’m sorry if this has been addressed before but as a Guest I lack search capabilities.

2

Yes, tell your lawyer everything. Every detail you can recall. Yes, they will represent you or will honorably decline and let you get someone else. Lawyers, good ones, will take you case and represent you zealously. But they can’t do that if they don’t know where you came from. They’re legally bound in the US not to ever disclose what you tell them (and Law n Order aside, violations are rare and viciously attacked).

3

So they are are permitted (and encouraged it would seem) to help you convince a judge/jury of untruths? I am quite surprised they do not have obligations to the truth.

4

lawyers having and obligation to the truth! MUHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA

5

As far as I know, and I’m not a lawyer, generally, if your lawyer knows you committed the crime, he can’t argue you didn’t commit the crime. He can still plead you not guilty, and can still attack the prosecution’s case.

6

Captain: Now that was closer to my understanding, though entirely contradictory to everyone else’s posts thus far…this may well be an interesting thread yet!

7

IANAL, but I have worked for them. I would say of the cases that came into the office (this is defense lawyers), only about 10-15% ever reached trial. Most of the time, defense lawyers (at least the ones at this practice) are working on plea bargains and trying to get the best possible sentence deal for the client.

8

Binky, there have been threads on this in the past, but since you can’t search I’ll give a short answer to your inquiry.

If I’m representing a person accused of a criminal offence, I cannot mislead the court. It is my duty, however, to test the prosecution’s case. The accused does not have to prove that he didn’t do it. The onus is is the prosecution to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the accused did it.

Suppose the client is charged with a mugging and admits to me that he did it. I can enter a not guilty plea on his behalf, because that isn’t a statement of fact. It’s saying to the Crown prosecutor, “Prove it!” However, since the accused has admitted to the mugging, I cannot lead any evidence to suggest that he was not present, such as an alibi. What I can do is test every aspect of the Crown’s case and see if there are any reasonable doubts.

So for example, I can cross-examine the person who was mugged to see if they can identify my client and whether they did so in proper controlled circumstances. What if it turns out that the victim is extremely near-sighted and had his glasses knocked off during the episode. How reliable is the eye-witness identification then? Or, if the assault occurred at night, were there any street lights around? If not, how can you be sure of the victim’s identification? Or, what if the police conducted the photo i.d. in a way that unfairly brought my clientto the victim’s attention, increasing the chances of an identification?

The Crown prosecutor’s onus is to rebut each and every one of these challenges. If my cross-examination of the victim on the identification, or of the police about the fairness of their procedures, raises a reasonable doubt in the mind of the jury (or judge, in a trial with judge alone), then the Crown has not met the onus and my client is entitled to an acquittal.

Why is that permitted? Because in liberal democracies we prize individual liberty so highly. We intentionally stack the deck in favour of the accused and against the state. We do so knowing that sometimes people will be acquitted who may be guilty, but we do so because it’s one of the best protections against a police state. A defence lawyer who does his or her job is working for the client, and also working to protect our system where the onus is always on the state to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt. If the defence lawyer can poke enough holes in the Crown’s case to raise a reasonable doubt, then the client is entitled to an acquittal and the system has worked properly.

9

That’s kind of interesting. Presumably you would not be allowed to say something like, “I have statements from other parties that claim the defendant was across town when this crime occurred. Can you prove them wrong?” But isn’t that basically the same thing?

10

That’s somewhat different because the alibi would mean the defense arguing something that’s untrue, that the accused did not commit the crime.

But poking holes in the prosecution’s argument does not necessarily mean arguing something that’s untrue.

Compare:

  1. My client was not at the site of the mugging because he was across town having dinner with his family (completely untrue).

  2. Your witness’ testimony saying my client did it is not reliable because it was too dark to see clearly/he is extremely nearsighted/he was drunk or high or dazed and might be making statements that are not accurate.

Notice in the second case you’re not advancing a statement of fact that’s untrue, unlike in the first case. You’re simply pointing out weaknesses in the prosecution’s argument which might make it less airtight. Weaken it enough, and you get your acquittal.

11

IANA lawyer, but I have a couple of relatives who are.

I think that, in the US, most lawyers will also weigh the evidence in advance. They generally are told what that evidence will be (e.g., the names of the six eye-witnesses.) If the only witness is the blind and semi-senile person who was mugged, no fingerprints, no other evidence, the case is pretty weak and the lawyer will try to poke holes in it and get an acquittal. If there are six eye-witnesses and the accused’s fingerprints on the recovered purse, and one of the eye-witnesses was a copy who apprehended the accused at the scene… well, the lawyer will probably try to plea-bargain as lenient a sentence as possible.

So, will a lawyer try to get an acquittal if he/she knows the person is guilty? Answer: yes. The lawyer’s job and obligation under the US/UK legal systems is to get the best result possible for clients.

12

No, you misunderstand my point. It seems like if you can say, “I’m not claiming he’s innocent, I just challenge you to prove his guilt,” you should be able to say, “I’m not claiming his alibi is necessarily true, I just challenge you to prove it’s not.”

Apparently you can’t say that, though, and I’m not clear on why not.

13

Presenting evidence that you know to be untrue is called “suborning perjury.” It’s not only a crime, but a violation of legal ethics that can get a lawyer disbarred. If your client has told you of his guilt, and you call a witness to give him an alibi, you’re trusting two known liars with your liberty and your livelihood.

14

So does this have any bearing on what we can conclude if we ever sit on a criminal case jury? If the lawyer never presents any positive case for the defendant’s guilt, is that a pretty good indicator that they’ve got a guilty client?

Not that we should think that way, but would that be an accurate approach?

Daniel

15

There are some exceptions to the blanket statements above. Most notably is the fact that the accused has an absolute right to testify in his own defense. The lawyer that knows his client intends to lie on the stand is thus in an ethical dilemna: he has a duty of candor towards the tribunal, but he also has a duty to his client.

The general solution is to let the guy get up and tell his story in narrative, rather than by Q&A, and then not to argue his testimony in closing.

16

Absolutely not. It could simply be that the accused was asleep alone at home when the crime was committed. There are a million situations in which innocents don’t have alibis and therefore the more appropriate defense is putting the Government to its case.

–Cliffy

17

Is the prosecution allowed to point this out to the jury? e.g. “pay attention to whether or not the defense argues using the defandant’s testimony… he’s legally bound not to use testimony he knows is false, so you can draw your own conclusions about him not mentioning it in his closing statement.”

18

When you challenge someone to prove something else false, and if they fail, then aren’t you presuming the lack of evidence shows that the something is true (which is unethical, in this case).

I have a statement. It’s supposedly crucial to my argument (in this case, a false alibi crucial to my defense). I challenge you to prove it false.

If you do, well, that’s devastating to my case. It’s over. I’m done. I’m going to jail.

If you fail to prove it false…

I can say “ah ha! Since you didn’t prove it false, then it must be true.” But that’s unethical, since the alibi is false in the first place. It’s that presumption of truth you make about the alibi when making that challenge that makes it unethical.

Perhaps I’m still not getting your question…

It made so much more sense before you brought it up, that’s for sure :wink:

19

It sounds like the answer to the OP’s question is that it’s probably not a good idea to tell your attorney that you committed the crime if your only goal is to have the best chance of being acquitted.

After all, if your attorney doesn’t know that you committed the crime, then he won’t be restricted from arguing that you did not.

20

If the client tells his/her lawyer that they are guilty, does this really prove to the lawyer that they are in fact guilty? How would a lawyer be able to act should it seem to them that the client is innocent but covering for someone else, or blaming themself wrongly? How is it ever shown that a client admitted their guilt to the lawyer, and thus that a lawyer was “suborning perjury”?