Is that what I did? I could have sworn I just tossed off a joke.
Live and learn.
How many innocent defendants have been freed on the “technicality” that they were not advised of their rights or otherwise coerced into a confession? That’s far less likely because of a Supreme Court decision following convictions by two juries of a man with considerable evidence against him.
You seem to be mistaken-That was just a joke told to me by various lawyer friends over the years(and even heard in a filk song).
An actual public service would look like this: Ten Things Your Lawyer Might Not Want You To Know
…and be missing a punchline.
If I parse this right, you are not a fan of the Miranda warning requirement, but I am not entirely certain.
With regards to the Miranda warning, some things are worth considering:
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Miranda isn’t necessarily required when a person is arrested; it’s only necessary if they are interrogated. So a person isn’t going to get off on a technicality because they were not read their rights.
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If Miranda is improperly given before an interrogation, or if a confession is otherwise coerced, the statements are not admitted. But that doesn’t mean that other evidence isn’t also available. And if all that the police have to tie a person to a crime is a coerced confession, shouldn’t that be justification to be freed?
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When Ernesto Miranda was retried, without introducing his confession, he was still convicted.
I read his post as saying “yes, a likely criminal got off “on a technicality”, but how many innocent people have been protected by the law that came from it”. IOW, a good thing
Why are lawyers buried 8 feet under, instead of the usual 6? Because deep down, lawyers are good people.
What happens when a lawyer takes Viagra? He gets taller.
How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb? Depends. How many can you afford?
Why don’t sharks bite lawyers? Professional courtesy.
What’s the difference between a lawyer and sperm? Sperm has a million to one chance of becoming a human being one day.
Yes, the way that people call ‘the state violated rights of the defendant and the actual law, including the supreme law of the land’ a mere ‘technicality’ has always been disturbing. The double standard that declares regular person violating the law is an Evildoer who should be put behind bars immediately, damn what the law says about his rights, while an agent of the state violating the law is just some scumbag lawyer nitpicking a petty technicality that he should ignore in the interest of putting a law breaker behind bars is pretty hypocritical. I’ve never heard anyone offer any justification for why lawbreaking by agents of the government should be no big deal, or (to come back to the topic of this thread) why they consider it dishonest for a defense lawyer to truthfully point out violations of the law in court.
A real life circumstance from yesterday, when the court suppressed the search:
Police were doing a “gang patrol” in a bad part of town. The see a young black man with dreads make a turn and, in so doing, go from the middle lane to the wide lane. They pull him over for an illegal lane change, and run a criminal background search on him. He has a prior record of multiple convictions, last having been arrested 6 years ago for menacing somebody with a firearm. They pull him out of the car and frisk him: he has nothing. They ask him if he has a record, and he says yes (on bodycam, he’s quite calm and the conversation is friendly). They check for outstanding warrants, but none exist. They ask to search the car, he says no. They ask if he’d wait for a K9; he tells them that he has a sealed container of weed he just bought from a dispensary (it’s Colorado; less than 2 ounces are legal, and can be transported from the store to home in a sealed container).
So they say, we’re just going to write you a traffic ticket and let you go. But first…
Because it’s cold, we are going to let you wait in your car. But since you will have access to the car, we’re first going to search it for weapons.
And when we find a backpack in the back seat, we are going to open it up and rummage through it. (For you legal eagles out there, and to pre-empt the counterargument, there was no ‘plain feel’ of the backpack. He just opened and started shining his light in the bag).
Yes, he had a gun in that backpack. And due to his record, that’s a felony. But the police had no right to search for it. And the judge was correct in suppressing it.
Your Dad’s objection is not a valid objection to studying law.
I worked for a while with a lawyer who did not win or loose cases. He did not do legal research. He did not practice civil or criminal law. He talked for hours on the phone with schizophrenic people facing legal reviews, explaining what the process was, helping them understand and prepare. He also helped prepare people who would do the legal reviews. And did other writing tasks. He was on a salary.
His personal belief was that it was his role as a lawyer to help people understand and deal with legal process. His personal interest was in helping people who needed help most.
FWIW, I also know a public prosecutor. Her interest in winning or loosing is almost purely procedural. She will say or do only what is required by her job description: her personal interest only extends to being accurate and well organized.
With the greatest respect to my learned friend Moriarty, I’m always amused by the way any discussion of the law or lawyers turns into a discussion of criminal defence lawyers only.
Defence counsel is a fascinating bit of the profession but I prefer sociable hours, better pay, and a less demanding case load. Attending a police station at 3am is not a thing I would enjoy very much. Defence counsel are like doctors in that regard - they rock up when you’re having the worst time in your life and try to help fix it for you as best they can, even if it’s Christmas or 4am on a Sunday morning. I have an amazing amount of respect for them, and the pro bono work I’ve done in that space has been eye opening.
I haven’t been a solicitor for a long time so I’m just getting used to people questioning my honesty on the basis of my profession. It’s really weird. My former life was in credit risk and I think in terms of honesty that’s far less ethically policed an area.
In any case my area of the law (commercial contracts/intellectual property/M&A/general commercial) deals with disputes outside of court only - I work for a corporation, not a firm. I brief in other lawyers (and barristers) if I need to go to court, and I approve their invoices. I will say that their billing is usually reasonable and my working relationship with outside counsel is good and responsive.
If anything, the issue with obtaining justice is not an issue of the honesty of lawyers, it’s the issue of access to lawyers (and therefore the justice system) in the first place. If you don’t have a heap of cash, your options are limited and you’re likely to get a less experienced, overworked lawyer, if you can get one at all. It would be great to discuss the real issues of the profession rather than fake ones about whether or not lawyers are honest.
(I am not an American lawyer, but I doubt it’s different there - I’m an Australian solicitor but I practice in the UK, and am working towards a dual qualification.)
[Napoleon Dynamite]Lucky![/Dynamite]
Sounds like a protective sweep where the officer failed to successfully elocute a totality of circumstances justifying his reasonable suspicion that a weapon might be secreted in the car. I mean, you’ve got a high crime area, and a driver with a history of being a violent felon. Surprising the officer didn’t testify that he noticed any furtive movements from the driver, or that he felt something hard and metallic when first touching the backpack. He’ll learn…
That is an IDEAL setup for most lawyers; no billable hours (which are a huge pain in the ass to keep track of - one good thing about the criminal practice I am in is that we bill flat fees; but there are still civil matters billed hourly), and regular hours (criminal sometimes does require random weekend court appearances; trial prep usually takes up weekends; and jails leave a stank on you that is hard to wash off).
As noted, most lawyers aren’t in court dealing with criminals. I did transactional work, and some civil stuff that is largely dependent on negotiations - in both cases, you are basically just a typical office worker. The idea that you are especially duplicitous or untrustworthy because your office work is law-based is just odd.
See, to me this is fascinating. Criminal defense lawyers are often presumed dishonest without just case. Cops, meanwhile, have to learn to embellish (which is to say, to make up facts; which is to say, lie) to do their job.
In actuality, body camera footage prevented him from saying that he felt something hard and metallic. It also contradicts any argument that the guy was making furtive movements. The officers did try to argue that he was acting suspicious because he passed several open parking spots before picking the one he did. But the counter to that is that he parked next to a light pole; he selected a well lit area to stop in.