# Lawyers and barristers, how do you deal with defending horrible crimes?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lawyers-and-barristers-how-do-you-deal-with-defending-horrible-crimes/586814>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [June 25, 2011, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lawyers-and-barristers-how-do-you-deal-with-defending-horrible-crimes/586814 "2011-06-25T10:15:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 4

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\
**Post date:** [June 30, 2011, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lawyers-and-barristers-how-do-you-deal-with-defending-horrible-crimes/586814/61 "2011-06-30T14:45:56Z")

</div>

> [@Noel\_Prosequi](#):
>
> Nope. There is an ethical difference between what prosecutors do and what defence lawyers do. If, as a prosecutor, you are satisfied of innocence, or even short of that, satisfied that the evidence is insufficient to convict, you pull the pin and stop the prosecution.

Unless your boss tells you “I don’t care what you think; I’m telling you to prosecute the case”. It’s not like ‘Prosecutor’ is always a single person with absolute authority to determine the course of cases.

So yeah, I’m sure there’s somewhere an ADA or whatever who has had to work on prosecuting someone who they were convinced was innocent. And even in the best case, where a lead attorney did have a good enough relationship with their boss, and little enough political pressure, that they could pull the plug on a case even at the last minute after the office has invested a lot of work in it, I’m sure someone has had second thoughts after the conviction, but not enough evidence or political pull to get the case revisited.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\
**Post date:** [June 30, 2011, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lawyers-and-barristers-how-do-you-deal-with-defending-horrible-crimes/586814/62 "2011-06-30T15:05:01Z")

</div>

It doesn’t work like that. Prosecutors _are_ independent to the extent that they can drop charges regardless of what the boss wants. Their job is to bring people to justice, not to obtain convictions.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\
**Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lawyers-and-barristers-how-do-you-deal-with-defending-horrible-crimes/586814/63 "2011-07-03T00:32:27Z")

</div>

I’ve moved from defending to prosecuting in the last couple of years, but a lot of the stressors are similar if not the same, particularly as regards the facts of a particular case. Dealing with the facts is usually an academic experience, until you realize that the facts of a particularly heinous case of crimes against children has gotten under your skin much more deeply than usual, such that you’re dealing with it by biting the head off of anyone who looks at you the wrong way and by periodically losing your shit on your friends and family.

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lawyers-and-barristers-how-do-you-deal-with-defending-horrible-crimes/586814.md?page=3)