Lawyers: Would you defend Osama bin Laden?

Have you ever cross examined a 10 year old rape victim?
I have.

I have a problem with your approach. If you take the case, you promised the Judge, on your sacred honor, that you would do your best to win it. By not objecting to the evidence, you’d breaking that promise and throwing your honor away. I can’t condone that.
You’d also be violating professional ethics, and I can’t condone that, either.

I assumed, given your political viewpoints, that you are among those who protest the trial of Guantanamo detainees in civil court. If I am wrong, I of course withdraw the comment and apologize.

Osama Bin Laden’s a rapist?

In the land of missing the point, they are missing their king.

Sure would, if the US taxpayers were paying my 500/hour fee. As with the OJ Simpson case, more = more justice!
The reality is: Osama is guilty-he has admitted to planning 9/11, several times. The real issue is, what emotional issues made him do it?
That oughta be good for a few thousand hours of lawyerin’
Cynical?..naaah!

The OP (before the visions of the future) should totally be a She-Hulk story.

Of course, Jennifer would survive a shot to the head, too…

I am not sure I understand this. It is not a miscarriage of justice to convict the guilty (in our hypothetical world) based on unchallenged evidence.

The evidence isn’t fraudulent in the sense of being forged, and Osama is really guilty.

Let me flesh out my scenario a bit - Osama was arrested, informed of his rights under Miranda, and he says he wants a lawyer. The arresting officers talk to Osama for about twenty minutes, telliing him that if he gets a lawyer, he will almost certainly be convicted and get the death penalty, whereas if he talks without one, he will be sentenced to no more than ten years. No beatings, no water boarading, nothing like that - they just continue to interrogate him after he asserts his rights.

Osama then tells them the access code to his secret bank account in Switzerland. It contains all the evidence that is the basis for the prosecution’s case.

Again, IANAL, but I was under the impression that
[ul][li]You cannot continue an interview after the defendant has asked for a lawyer[/li][li]A Swiss bank account is not under the immediate control of a person, and cannot be searched as part of an arrest. [/li][li]Evidence obtained from an illegal search is “fruit of the poisoned tree” and inadmissible. [/ul]Assuming the Watcher still has established Osama’s guilt beyond any shadow of doubt, and also that I am the only lawyer on earth who knows the circumstances of the seizure of the Swiss bank evidence. [/li]

I think I understand this. As I said earlier, we are discussing a hypothetical where the innocent are never accused. In a world like that, where there was perfect knowledge of guilt and innocence, as mentioned, the presumption of innocence would be unnecessary and counter-productive.

The professional ethics part is, as I said, a means to an end. The part about breaking my promise is much harder.

I can keep a promise and a murderer goes free. Or I can break it, and lie to the Nazis about where Anne Frank is hiding, and he will be convicted. IYSWIM.

There is a miracle story about some saint or other - Saint Elizabeth, IIRC. Her husband forbade her to feed the poor, but she did it anyway. She was taking an apron full of bread to the hungry, and her husband caught her.

“What have you got in your apron?” he asked her.

“Flowers”, she told him.

“Show me”, he said to her.

And she opened her apron, and it was full of roses.

Maybe the best I could hope for is a miracle.

Regards,
Shodan

No, unlike a child rapist, he’s a “monster” unworthy of representation.

At least that helps define where Oakminster must draw the line, but I’d still like to see him state his definition directly. And there are other participants here who are avoiding the question entirely, for reasons best known to themselves.

Also, maybe Osama has a sufficiently distinctive first name that we can finally resurrect the OJ joke:

Q: Knock knock
A: Osama
Q: Osama who?
A: YOU’RE ON THE JURY!

For that matter, I think there have been very similar cases in the past where people were trialled for massively repugnant war crimes, and everyone pretty much knew they did it, but needed a trial to decide the sentence, and they needed someone to represent them, and many people refused to do so, but eventually someone did, knowing they’d be massively reviled for it.

I think people should have representation as a matter of principle, because a sytem where SOME people can be denied representation is a system where ANYONE can be denied representation. But I might or might not be brave enough to do so at the cost of my own life and career – probably not, but I’d respect someone who did. Contrarwise, if I know they’re guilty, I don’t feel an obligation to try to get them acquited (even though they still deserve representation, possibly from someone who doesn’t know they’re guilty and will try to get them acquited)

The situation feels all but literally like an internal contradiction. We’re supposed to know the man is guilty, yet all the evidence is falsified and all confessions are coerced. The stipulations don’t seem compatible. One has to give way to the other, and afaik we’re just gonna have to shrug and say “well I guess we have to assume innocent after all” and sit there wondering wtf just happened.

Well, then I’ll consider the comment withdrawn and apology accepted.

Think you’re confused. Yes, Osama is a monster. So is the rapist I defended. I use the term monster to mean someone utterly and irredeemably evil. I have represented such people before, and would do so again in this scenario.

:D:D:D:

I hadn’t heard that before. Good one.

If I knew I was going to be killed or hated and have my life destroyed, then no, I wouldn’t take it. If I didn’t know that beforehand, I’d do it
Actually, nevermind. I think I would console myself with the fact that if I can get Osama off, many many people in the Islamic world would not be able to simply say America is evil and all that when we got even our most wanted off. It may be a change in the whole West vs. Islam relationship! I think I would want to be a part of that. Change my vote to yes

True that. I remember reading an article a while ago about an attorney whose client was hours from execution. I can’t recall the name, but there was a photo accompanying the photograph. I don’t think I’d ever seen anyone look quite that haunted before. I don’t care how horrible a person your client may be - to spent months, or years, defending them, getting to know them, trying to save their life, and then fail - that must be the most horrible feeling in the world.

More horrible than the feeling felt by the family members of the victim? Really?

I am not a lawyer, but in my understanding of most jurisdictions I have been resident in, a lawyer cannot ethically misrepresent the truth to the court. Hence, if I know Osama is guilty, I cannot ethically lead an argument that he is innocent - but I can and should try to get every piece of tainted evidence thrown out, and argue that there is insufficient untainted evidence to prove the state’s case.

This is exactly what the system is set up for. Without fighting the hypothetical, we DON’T have proof of Osama’s guilt until the evidence has been tested in court, and maintaining that stance is more important than the outcome of any one case (since, according to the hypothetical, we know that the outcome of this one case would be genuinely releasing a guilty party).

Yes and No. In a criminal case, the prosecution goes first. Presents their entire case. At that point (and in this OP’s scenario), the defense wins on a motion to strike the prosecution’s evidence. Essentially you are saying, even if you believe everything they just said, they haven’t met the burden of proving x, y and z. Motion to strike is granted, and the defendant walks.

If my client tells me he is guilty… “yes, mrs. llcoolbj, it is my weed… I was at that party.” I cannot then go into court and argue that my client was in Paris, France at the time. I am obligated both by my duty of loyalty to my client and my duty of honesty to the Court.

Of course I can zealously argue that the arrest/search/evidence was unlawful and therefore inadmissible. And if I win at that point, than the ends of justice have been met. (Again, as would be the case in the OP’s scenario).

For the record, I would represent OBL. I have also cross-examined a 7-year old molestation victim. I cried like a baby afterwards. The prosecutor kindly took me aside, and told me to suck it up… That my client deserved competent counsel, and that is what he got.

Ran across this wiki page on the Boston Massacre. Guess I’d never really thought of the aftermath, but there was a trial, and one of the defense lawyers was John Adams. Here’s what he had to say:

*March 5, 1773:
(The third anniversary of the Boston Massacre)

"I. . .devoted myself to endless labour and Anxiety if not to infamy and death, and that for nothing, except, what indeed was and ought to be all in all, sense of duty. In the Evening I expressed to Mrs. Adams all my Apprehensions:That excellent Lady, who has always encouraged me, burst into a flood of Tears, but said she was very sensible of all the Danger to her and to our Children as well as to me, but she thought I had done as I ought, she was very willing to share in all that was to come and place her trust in Providence.

"Before or after the Tryal, Preston sent me ten Guineas and at the Tryal of the Soldiers afterwards Eight Guineas more, which were. . .all the pecuniary Reward I ever had for fourteen or fifteen days labour, in the most exhausting and fatiguing Causes I ever tried: for hazarding a Popularity very general and very hardly earned: and for incurring a Clamour and popular Suspicions and prejudices, which are not yet worn out and never will be forgotten as long as History of this Period is read…It was immediately bruited abroad that I had engaged for Preston and the Soldiers, and occasioned a great clamour…

"The Part I took in Defence of Cptn. Preston and the Soldiers, procured me Anxiety, and Obloquy enough. It was, however, one of the most gallant, generous, manly and disinterested Actions of my whole Life, and one of the best Pieces of Service I ever rendered my Country. Judgment of Death against those Soldiers would have been as foul a Stain upon this Country as the Executions of the Quakers or Witches, anciently. As the Evidence was, the Verdict of the Jury was exactly right.

“This however is no Reason why the Town should not call the Action of that Night a Massacre, nor is it any Argument in favour of the Governor or Minister, who caused them to be sent here. But it is the strongest Proofs of the Danger of Standing Armies.”*