Congress runs in the 50+ percentage and the Senate in the 60+ percentage.
Only a non lawyer would think this is some kind of profound observation.
More likely it is due to ignorant people thinking lawyers are supposed to seek Jusice, whatever that is. Legal systems are designed because man is fallible we invent laws and rules to approximate justice or create a system that in the end is more just than others. We have attempted to create a system of laws not men because we saw how well the alternative worked.
It’s fine if you wish to explicate on the reasons for the perception. Brief throwaway lines, however, are too apt to be misinterpreted (e.g., that you believe that lawyers in general actually are scum), even if that was not your intent. Just be a little clearer on what you actually mean.
With that, I think at this point this thread is perhaps more suited for GD than GQ. I’m going to move it.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Would horsehair wigs suffice?
The expression “He got off on a technicality” makes perfectly good sense to me, in that it indicates that a person who otherwise would have been convicted was not convicted due to a law/rule that had nothing to do with the substance of the alleged crime. A good example is how in the USA illegally obtained hard evidence is usually supressed. The supression has nothing to do with whether or not the person actually performed the actus. This technicality exists as a very powerful incentive to help keep the police and prosecutors from misbehaving. If a person gets off due to such a law/rule, I think it is fair enough to say the person got off on a technicality. Substance verses procedure.
So in the football analogy in post#113 you would say the team lost on a technicality?
I guess my thought is there can be no substance independant of procedure.
How do you feel about people who are convicted on “technicalities”? Should they be released?
Let me give you a real world example. My consulting firm is routinely hired by lawyers to assist in investigating corporate fraud. That work is generally considered to be attorney work product and is covered under privilege.
Now sometimes, the law firm may be required to produce that work to opposing counsel or some other third party. In such a case, they may either exclude documents deemed to be privileged (attorney/client communications, corporate intellectual property, etc) or they may redact (the black cross out marks) portions of those documents.
Well, I consider them “scum of the earth” because I find many of them to be arrogant, insensitive assholes who call you up at innappropriate times to perform ridiculous requests. But most people don’t work with them as closely as I do.
The reason most people view them as scum is because they are supposed to argue the merits of a case based on points of law, not on emotional appeals to “justice”. Everyone has their own sense of what is right and wrong and what “justice” means which is why we have to write it down in the form of laws.
You may not like what someone did, but if there is no law against it, no crime has been committed.
Remember that the burden is on the state to prove that a crime has been committed.
Anyone, most criminal cases are not high profile. Lawyers defend alleged scum quite simply because it is their job and they get paid to do so. If you don’t want to defend alleged criminals, don’t become a defense attorney.
Here’s one I read about yesterday. Briefly, the link describes a kid who committed four cold-blooded murders before he was caught, knowing that he would be tried as a juvenile and would be free on his 21st birthday. The article describes a variety of forms of evidence, including a detailed confession and physical evidence and injuries on his body; nobody is disputing the idea that he committed the crimes, and nobody is disputing the idea that he is a sociopath. He has threatened other people with murder while in prison, and he has allegedly told fellow inmates that he would make history when he was released. The justice system is doing its best to keep him from ever being released, giving him the maximum possible sentence for crimes that normally wouldn’t merit more than a fine.
Now, I’m all about defense lawyers. I understand that they’re necessary to keep people from being railroaded, and that our system would collapse if the worst of the worst were denied legal representation.
At the same time, the guy’s defense attorney sounds pretty dedicated to the case. He’s got to know that if he succeeds, there’s a very good chance that the defendant will commit more horrific murders. And if that doesn’t cause the defense attorney some emotional anguish, that’s pretty fucked up.
Daniel
The article in your link is from 1973. Do you have anything a bit more recent? Just askin’…
This is true. There are literally dozens of other types of law that one can practice. Granted, you may still represent alleged criminals, but they might be the kind you like. 
Daniel, that is not a technicality. The kid was 15 when he committed the crimes. For good or ill we have two systems one for juveniles and one for adults. People don’t like it they can get rid of the juvenile system nothing in the constitution requires it. I think it is a stretch to say this is an example of a technicality.
Nevertheless, I feel I am being overly semantical or pedantic with the discussion of technicalities I think it is more a difference in perspective than actual philosophical difference that distinguishes my position. In other words I am sorry for wandering off topic.
I don’t think it’s a stretch at all. Virtually anyone that you ask, I am confident, will tell you that they would like this guy to be locked away for the rest of his life. He is a sociopath, and he shows no sign of remorse or of rehabilitation. Justice demands that he be locked away; public safety demands that he be locked away.
The only reason he might be freed is that the law was written poorly, with a loophole in it, and this sociopath knew about the loophole and took advantage of it. It’s not the principle of justice that will free him; it’s the technical language of the law that might.
And the whole reason he’s not free is that judges and prosecutors have found a lot of ways to keep him locked up on various technicalities. Virtually nobody thinks that a 15-year sentence is appropriate for telling someone once that you’ll snuff them out, but that’s part of the way this guy is still behind bars.
Normally it sickens me when prosecutors put someone behind bars on a technicality. This case gives me pause.
With all that aside, do you agree that, despite the need for a defense attorney in this case, it would be a terrible job to do, and that you’d feel like shit trying to get this guy freed, especially if you succeeded? I can’t imagine having uncomplicated feelings about being this guy’s attorney.
Daniel
I absolutely agree.
You know, how a “juvenile” is defined can vary wildly between jurisdictions. In a certain CA county (for quite a while, at least), there hadn’t been a juvenile convicted of murder in years, because every single one of them was bumped up to adult court rather than being tried in juvenile court.
It’s a community choice, perhaps…
The article is a fascinating read on how one community changed their definition of “juvenile” as a result of a single case. Check it out!
Daniel
currently it’s 40% Congress and 58% Senate.
I think most people would agree with you about this; even most lawyers.
The problem is that, in these lawyer-bashing threads, the default assumption among the knee-jerks is that they focus only on the cases where lawyers appear to be thwarting justice. They forget that, in every court case (civil or criminal), there are lawyers on both sides of the debate. While these lawyers are fighting for their clients, and not for any esoteric concept like “justice,” we as a society have concluded that justice is, on the whole, best served by a system in which lawyers are advocates for their clients, and in which the two sides are placed in an adversarial position to one another.
Of course, it’s possible to argue that the adversarial system is not the best system for arriving at a just conclusion. Quite a lot of legal experts make such arguments, and in fact there are legal systems in which the role of lawyers is quite different from their role in the American adversarial system.
But, given that we are stuck with the adversarial system for the moment, it’s rather pointless to argue that lawyers who act as advocates for their clients are somehow deserving of scorn and derision. I’m constantly amazed by how many Americans tout American justice as an example for the world to follow, and in the next breath complain about the fact that there are lawyers willing to defend “scum” in the justice system. Do those who make such complaints not realize that it is precisely the opportunity for everyone to be defended, and to enjoy the protections of the law, that makes the American justice system ( and others like it) so laudable?
Are there problems within the system? Sure. Legislators, lawyers, judges and police are all human, and each group contains its share of assholes, incompetents, and crooks. But the priority should be weeding out those people, rather than making an a priori assertion that a lawyer is an asshole simply for doing the job that he or she is meant to do within the justice system.
Also, it’s precisely because lawyers are human that we need a fairly strict set of rules governing the way that they advocate for their clients. If every lawyer who knew or suspected that the client was guilty could then drop the case, or intentionally tank it at trial, can you imagine the implications for the justice system? The role of lawyers is precisely NOT to be the final arbiters of guilt or innocence, but to argue as strongly as possible for their client and leave the arbitration up to those whose task it is.
And it’s not just “law” and “justice” at work here, but also “ethics.” Like many other professions, law has a code of ethics that is designed to bind each practitioner to the same set of rules, and to ensure that certain standards of practice are followed. If individual lawyers could just step outside this code whenever they felt that there was something “scummy” about their client, the system of justice that America holds so dear would mean nothing. The medical profession doesn’t allow doctors to refuse life-saving treatment based on the “scumminess” of the patient, and in areas where our very freedom is at stake, it’s much better for our society that the law is similarly strict with its practitioners.
You do realize, i assume, that the vast majority of cases, even cases involving “scum,” are not “high profile” cases. The vast majority of defense attorneys work long hours without ever getting their name on the front page of the paper, or their face on CourtTV (now TruTV :rolleyes: ). And while plenty of defense lawyers make a very nice living, there are plenty of others who spend their whole careers as public defenders, working long hours in less-than-ideal conditions for relatively unspectacular pay.
Well, I think that Ralph, Magiver, and a few others should be banned from this board as scum. You see, under my personal code of ethics, you can expect to be judged by the same measure as you judge by. And clearly, since I’m accusing them of being scum, they obviously are scum – or I never would have made the accusation. No need for moderators and admins. to review the case – just ban them now, post haste.
Or maybe there might just be a good reason behind why we have a legal system that guarentees both sides a chance to be heard, and protects someone from punishment until they’re proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Ya think?
I presume the moderators are capable of seeing the irony in the proof by absurdity implicit in my first paragraph.
The system, while it is the best one we have, often is not capable of providing justice due to either there not being sufficient information upon which to make just decisions (e.g. lack of evidence), or because the situations of the individuals involved do not fit well with the functioning of the system (e.g. mentally ill persons). It comes down to the court having to make a decision based on the best available information, even if that information is far from sufficient, and that court’s decision then affecting the lives of the people involved, even if that decision cannot be tailored to provide the most beneficial result for both society and those parties. It’s human nature to shoot the messenger, so when the system fails to provide outcomes that please everyone, it is not surprising that lawyers take the heat.