So in this thread about the murder of a homeless person in The Hague by some young people, there was a lot of… grumping( ?- Griping? Complaining? Sneering?) about how in the US, those youths would have likely been defended via some sort of sympathy defense about how poorly the youths were raised, how their friends made them do it, and so on, with a definite indictment about how this is some sort of decline in American society that causes this sort of defense.
I’d counter that with basically the idea that defense attorneys have an obligation of professional ethics to defend their clients to the best of their ability, and if they’re having to resort to such a (IMO, lame) defense, it’s most likely to be the best thing they can come up with if their clients are clearly guilty, assuming the lawyers themselves aren’t incompetent. And further, that any indictment of society that’s involved has to do with whatever mush-headed jurors or judges are swayed by it, or for the prosecuting attorneys for not dispelling the bullshit as such, not for the defense attorneys for bringing it up in the first place. It’s an act of desperation on their part, not some sinister and weird legal maneuver based on some sort of creeping decline in American society.
Since that is no defense for murder, would the judge allow it? Would a competent barrister even attempt such a Chewbacca defense? And what does that case have to do with the US, anyway?
As far as I could tell, someone got on the other thread and blurted out that in the US, the defense would be that “someone/something else made me do it”, and then said that it’s a sign of decline.
My thought was that it’s basically a hail-mary in a legal sense, not something that a lawyer would choose first, and that it’s not a sign of decline, except insofar as some foolish jurors might be swayed by that sort of nonsense.
Assuming the evidence that they committed the act is strong, and the clients won’t accept or aren’t offered a plea deal, what else is the lawyer for the defense going to do in a situation like this? Throwing slop against the wall in the hopes that something sticks with a sympathetic judge or jury is probably the best the lawyer can do. Its not likely to win, but standing up and saying, “yeah, my client is just truly the worst,” probably is going to raise some ethical red flags for the lawyer.
That was me. I also added that it is not just criminal defense - I see this in the regular world. My stepson gets fired? Someone else’s fault he was fired neglecting the fact that he showed up late (if at all) and pop off to his bosses repeatedly. Someone doesn’t renew their certification that they need for their job? It’s their boss’ fault for not reminding them their certificate was expiring. So the question is: is the “It’s someone else’s fault I made these choices.” a calculated criminal defense to play on sympathy or is it a reflection of an American society that eschews personal responsibility?
Given that (as mentioned above by @Procrustus) that kind of defense is well-documented in past trials (and one of the most egregious instances was the Leopold and Loeb trial of 1924, almost 100 years ago - Leopold and Loeb committed a truly repulsive murder-for-thrills of a 14-year old boy), I would say that this is definitely a defense strategy with a long history behind it, not really a symptom of any recent eschewing of personal responsibility on the part of society.
(FWIW: Leopold and Loeb’s lawyer, the famous Clarence Darrow, managed to avoid the electric chair for his clients using exactly this tactic; he managed to get life in prison instead for them. Loeb died in prison after being stabbed 58 times by a fellow inmate. Leopold was paroled in 1958; he died in Puerto Rico in 1971).
To get the charges knocked down to manslaughter, wouldn’t the defense need to prove (for example) the criminals acted under actual duress? And in what jurisdictions would that even work, even if someone had held a gun to their heads? I am not familiar with the case in question, but the synopsis above makes it sound like they straight-up murdered somebody in front of a bunch of witnesses.
I’m ignorant of the degree to which his monologue was directly quoted from Darrow’s defense of Leopold and Loeb, but Orson Welles sure knocked one out of the park.
Sure, but there’s a huge difference between a defense attorney coming up with a defense for his client, and someone refusing to take responsibility for their own actions, or for the actions of someone/something they are responsible for.
I do see what you’re getting at; it does seem like the number of people who seem to blame everything under the sun for their predicament except for themselves is higher than I remember it being as a child/young adult. If I had to venture a guess as to why people are acting like that, it’s probably some sort of reflection of a shift in parenting from what they’d call “free range kids” to a more controlled childhood. Free range kids have to be responsible or there are penalties within child society- they get ostracized, beat up, or left behind by the other children if they lie, cheat, steal, are late, forget stuff, etc… which isn’t something that happens if someone’s parents are always right there.
That’s my hypothesis, but I don’t have any proof or anything.
Even if this were a common defense tactic (it isn’t) it clearly would not be an effective one, and particularly not under manadatory sentencing laws that have massively increased long duration incarceration even for what are often minor crimes.
As of May 2021, the United States had the highest prisoner rate, with 639 prisoners per 100,000 of the national population. El Salvador, Turkmenistan, Thailand, and Palau rounded out the top five countries with the highest rate of incarceration.Prisoners in the United StatesThe United States is not only the country with the highest incarceration rate worlwide, but it is also home to the largest number of prisoners. Roughly 2.12 million people were incarcerated in the U.S. in 2020. In China, the estimated prison population totaled to 1.71 million people that year. Other nations had far fewer prisoners.The largest share of the U.S. prisoners in federal correctional facilities were of African-American origin. As of 2018, there were almost 409,600 black, non-Hispanic prisoners, compared to 394,800 white, non-hispanic inmates. The U.S. states with the largest number of prisoners in 2019 were Texas, California and Florida.About 176,300 prisoners in state facilities were sentenced for drug-related offenses, such as trafficking and possession. Drug-related offenses were the most common cause of imprisonment in state prisons. Second most common were felonies, such as murder and robbery.
Legal defense offers broad latitude in demonstrating reasonable doubt; essentially, as long as a defense attorney is not suborning perjury or presenting counterfactual evidence, they can advance nearly any thesis for defense, even if involves parables about fictional characters living in a galaxy far, far away (or how a certain article of clothing doesn’t fit). However, when it comes to jury instructions, the judge also has wide latitude to instruct the jury on what they should and should not consider with respect to determination of guilt, e.g. that diversionary theories about whether and how of Wookies and Ewoks cohabitating has no bearing on their deliberations.
I was impanelled on a jury on a trial a few years ago when the guilt of the defendant was incontrovertible (video evidence of the crime in question) so the defense tried to present some kind of “sliding scale of innocence-guilt” complete with a thermometer graphic in closing arguments (in addition to religious and emotional appeals); the judge indulged him for several minutes but finally cut off the defense attorney after his third repetition and then told the jury that they should make their determination based on the facts presented and the jury instructions, not a (stupid) temperature chart.
It is common in sentencing to present mitigating circumstances for consideration, particularly to demonstrate that the defendant(s) did not have proper context to understand the nature of the crime or lacked a grounding in moral decision-making. The effectiveness of this strategy is also questionable given the large number of young defendants given decades-long sentences even for relatively minor crimes, and obviously not applicable in the case of mandatory sentencing.
The hypothetical complaint voiced by @Saint_Cad that the US wasn’t punishing offenders “hard enough” to prevent recidivism was what lead to the push for “three strikes” laws, particularly focused on drug-related crimes, and the evidence that it has been effective at crime reduction is equivocal at best. Such measures have been effective in building a nationwide multibillion dollar private prison industry which has made some people very rich and provided a source of inexpensive labor, notwithstanding abuse and fraud makes The Shawshank Redemption look like a Boy Scout camp. So, ye-hah!, state-subsidized capitalism and the prison-industrial complex!
Ummm . . . whuh? Pretty sure I never said. I think my complaint was more of an observation that in the US “not my fault I did what I did” seems to be a valid legal defense.
Making the argument that “not my fault I did what I did” is pretty much a valid legal defense anywhere, particularly when the facts of the crime are beyond dispute. It doesn’t make it an effective defense.
The one time I was on a jury for a murder case. You knew it was over as soon as the defense started talking about self-defense and how much the witnesses drank based on a vodka bottle in their house. The defense attorney tried their best with what they had available but even with a “not my fault” defense you have to admit being there. You have to admit participating. You basically have to admit to all aspects of the crime and then muck around at the edges in the hope you get a lesser included sentence or avoid the death penalty.
The only reason you would even try that defense is if the prosecution can already put you at the scene, doing the deed.