The Guilty & Attorneys...An Evil Cabal & Threat to Society? Yes, According to 2 NYers

Great Debates
1

OK: For starters, let me start be stating:[ul][li]I, like many others, was disgusted with the murder of Samantha Runnion. (As to not hide anything; you can see how other posters feel here.)[]My hatred of crimes against innocent victims and the criminals that commit them borders on the extreme; especially child molesters (and those who get gratification from pedophilia-like stimuli)[]I have a strong aversion for the way some things are perverted in our legal system and for any attorney that exploits it. (Once again, as to not hide anything; you can see how I feel about trial lawyers here.) []I have no law degree and am a layman when it comes all the nuances of the law []I find myself in agreement with the opinion below even though it comes from a pundit far outside the legal professionI realize this isn’t exactly fodder for great legal debate (ala the old Fred Friendly Columbia University discussions that used to air).[/ul]That being said: here’s that above mentioned pundit’s opinion. I’ll withhold the name as to not prejudice the thoughts of anyone who cares to reply (and no it isn’t Limbaugh, Bork, Savage or Coulter). Let’s say, for the sake of debate, these opinions are an assemblage of beliefs from people who are fed up with the revolving door justice system we find our selves with the in the United States. [/li]
Background:
Alejandro Avila, the accused killer (who kidnapped, raped & then violently murdered) 5-year-old Samantha Runnion, was charged with, but acquitted of molesting two 9-year-old girls in 2000.

Question:
What about the lawyers that got Avila off 2 years ago? Do they have blood on their hands?

Opinion:
If a defense attorney knows for certain, that his or her client is guilty and still tries to free the guilty person, that attorney is committing an immoral act.

Legal Clarification Support of the Opinion:
Article 6 of the Constitution says this, *“In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall have the assistance of counsel for his defense.”

Interpretation of Article 6:
The Constitution does not say, The accused has the right to ask his counsel to lie for him, to mislead, to manipulate the law, or to attempt to confuse the jury about the facts in the case. Many American lawyers believe they do have the right to use every means possible to get an acquittal even if they know a person is guilty.

Plus this…
From the American Bar Association’s Rule 1.16:
Every American lawyer has the right to withdraw from a case if, “the client insists upon taking action that the lawyer considers repugnant.”

Resolved:
**If a lawyer knows his or her client did the crime, and yet the client insists on trying to fool the jury into an acquittal, that is a repugnant action, period.

Taking money to free heinous criminals is blood money, a detriment to society that runs counter to Article 6 of the US Constitution.**

More Specifically, Re: Avila’s attorney; John Posa: [ol][li]He told the jury not to believe the testimony of the two little girls that swore Avila molested them.[]He knew his client had taken a lie detector test and failed.[]He refuses to discuss the case[/ol][/li]
In at least 2 person’s opinion:
All Americans deserve the assistance of counsel when charged with a crime. But that assistance should be honest, and it should be responsible. If the lawyer knows a client is guilty, work on a fair sentence, don’t try to manipulate the jury & twist the rule of law.

A couple of unanswered circumstances that may counter the resolution:

  1. Do the 50 States’ criminal statutes take precedence over Article 6 of the Constitution? If so, do you know of any State constitution that encourages “acquittal at any price”?
  2. Are there any other rules in the ABA Charter that have led defense attorney’s to interpret their legal duties to include the use of deception, smoke & mirrors.
  3. Has any court thrown out a plea or conviction on the ground the accused didn’t receive adequate defense on the ground his/her attorney used moral convictions and encouraged the defendant to plead guilty?

I hope there is such a thing as divine justice and can only wish that one day the evils of some will no longer be masked by the evils of others within the legal system.

Oh yeah, to avoid charges of plagiarism: Quotes taken from Bill O’Reilly, on the O’Reilly Factor, 7/25/02. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,58697,00.html

2

Personally I would not be defending the scum of the earth any more than I would like to be collecting garbage but someone has to do it.

Personally I think there are scum layers just like there are sum in every field and trade.

But to blame lawyers as you do is kisnd of stupid. They provide a needed service and they do their job. Just like CPAs get corporations to pay lower taxes using legal means. A defense attorney can say to the jury they should acquit because there is not sufficient evidence linking his client to the crime. He is not saying “this man is my friend and I would trust him with my life”

3

Quickly, some not very coherent toughts, just out of my head :
-Whatever could be the crime they’re accused of, some people will know much more than others about the legal system, or will have friends who are familiar with it, or we’ll be able to pay enough for somebody to help them., or whatnot…And we’ll be able to use this knowledge to be acquited, guilty or not, and to use whatever legal trick you’d find repugnant. If you want some equality, people need the help of lawyers ready to do everything they could to have them acquited.
-It seems that your ideas would result in the accused person having to face a first trial…by his attorney. “I think you’re guilty, so I won’t be your lawyer/refuse to help you plea not guilty/tell the jury you’re guilty even though you say you’re not”. How is the attorney supposed to find out you’re guilty before the trial (remember : finding out whether you’re guilty or not is the whole point of the trial)? Do you think that attorney have some magical power enabling them to know the truth? Should they give up as soon as they feel that perhaps they client could be lying?
-I don’t know how it works in the US, but I would assume that attorneys can refuse to defend someone. So, apparently, you’re condemning attorneys who accept to defend people already found guilty the public’s mind, or in your mind, as being somewhat a repugnant accomplice. Don’t these people, who are suspected to have commited a repugnant crime, and are believed to be guilty by the public need a dedicated attorney even more than the others?
-I just remembered a case which happened here some years ago. It was also a little girl raped and killed. The criminal was soon arrested. When the police organized a renactment of the crime in the little village were it has been commited, people threw stones at his lawyer, who also received death threats, etc…for defending this scum. Basically they shared your thoughts about repugnant lawyers who defend child murderers. Eventually, it turned out that the local police was so convinced they got the right guy that they half deliberatly overlooked evidences pointing the other way. It became more obvious, day after day, during the trial, that the enquiry had been totally messed up and the guy was acquited, while another man was found guilty. Until then, in the medias for instance, the fact he could be innocent wasn’t seriously considered. So, had the lawyer followed the public opinion stance and refused to use “dirty tricks” to convince the jury, an innocent man would be spending his life in prison…

4

Why not also blame the jury-who found him or her not guilty?

5

How about the judges? How about the people who make the laws? How about the people who vote for those who make the laws?

6

Actually, that attorney is violatign the California Rules of Professional Conduct.

and

There may be better cites to law that is more on point, but you get the picture: an attorney cannot legally pursue a defense that is known to be false. Therefore, either (1) the attorney did not know he was guilty, or (2) the attorney committed a crime.

7

Excuse me, but you can know someone is guilty and still put on a valid, legal, and moral defense. Clearly, you cannot lie or allow a witness to knowingly lie, but you can attack the prosecution’s evidence and you can establish that the prosecution has not proven their case. You don’t need to prove your client is innocent, just that the prosecution hasn’t proven their case.

The same argument can be made that if the police seized some evidence illegally which proves the defendent is guilty, we should convict them anyway. Our system doesn’t work that way, you have to prove your case by using legal means and the defense gets to attack your case.

Trial by public opinion is a bad method of establishing justice.

8

You are excused, Telemark. I’m not sure for what, but since you asked, I’m more than happy to grant it.

It is true that the an attorney can attack certain aspects of the sufficiency and quality of evidence, but only to the extent the attorney is, well, not lying. Its one thing to say evidence was obtained illegally, and therefore inadmissable. It is another thing to tell a jury “that evidence is wrong” when you know it is right.

The OP said “[the attorney] told the jury not to believe the testimony of the two little girls that swore Avila molested them.” Now, I admit I haven’t looked into the issue in a while, but I’ll bet that if the attorney knew the girls were telling the truth, then it would be inappropriate for him try to convince the jury otherwise.

Btw, speaking of the OP. Some points I failed to mention before:

  • "Every American lawyer has the right to withdraw from a case if, “the client insists upon taking action that the lawyer considers repugnant.” Probably true, but someone would need to survey the laws from every State. Model rules aren’t law.

  • “He knew his client had taken a lie detector test and failed.
    He refuses to discuss the case.” Lie detector tests are inadmissable for a very good reason – they aren’t reliable. http://www.skepdic.com/polygrap.html is a good read on the subject.

  • “He refuses to discuss the case.” This has no relevance.

9

A “moments after I hit the button” thought.

Gamesmanship can certainly be played.

The lawyer would be within the law if he put child psychologists on the stand who said 9 year old testimony is generally not reliable (notice: no specific mention of the truth of the specific testimoney of the girls, just a general statement). It would also be appropriate for him to say in his closing statement “Dr. Such-and-such said 9 year old testimoney is not reliable.”

However, that is not what the OP claimed. The OP claimed the attorney “told the jury not to believe the testimony of the two little girls that swore Avila molested them.” Maybe the OP ment to say “He told the jury that testimony from 9 year old girls is generally not reliable,” which would be defensible, even if he knew of the accuracy of the girl’s testimony.

10

I think it’s a defense attorney’s responsibility to do everything within the law to protect his client, no matter whether how guilty he is. That’s his role in our criminal justice system, and it needs to be done to ensure that the prosecution proves their case.

11

I’m thinking of a scenario when the defendant’s first lawyer withdraws from the case because he knew the dude was guilty, then his second lawyer does the same, etc.,–and the guy ends up walking because he can’t get the legal representation guaranteed him because all he has to do is say that he’s guilty–and his attorney walks.

Sort of Twilight Zone, I guess.

12

My point of view is that if the defense attorney somehow knows that his client is guilty, he has the moral obligation to not try to get his client off anyway (which he would accomplish by refusing to represent the client). However, while the guilty SOB is his client, he equally has the moral obligation to do everything he can within the law to protect his client.

13

It seems like you’re advocating abandoning the adversarial system. A defense attorney has the obligation to put the poice and prosecution to their burden of proof, regardless of what he may think of his client. If he thinks the client will lie on the stand, he has a duty to not allow him to testify or withdraw, and of course he can’t lie himself. But by defending him to the best of his ability, he makes certain that if he’s going to prison it’s because the state did its job.

The decision of what to plead isn’t the lawyer’s decision, it’s the defendant’s. If no lawyer will defend him because they all think he’s guilty, we’d have to let him go.

14

I still haven’t seen it established that this alleged human being is in fact guilty of molesting the two earlier little girls.

15

It seems to me that in JohnBckWLD’s world, we can save ourselves the considerable cost of judges, juries, and prosecutors in many cases. We merely assign an accused person to a defense lawyer. Since that defense lawyer apparently can, in some cases, reliably determine the accused person’s guilt, he can report same and we can summarily proceed to prison time.

Only in cases where the defense attorney is unsure of his client’s guilt do we need to have a trial. I cannot imagine the cost savings this measure will produce, but I’m sure it’s considerable.

  • Rick
16

Just how would the lawyer know that his client was guilty??? If they client confessed to him, maybe. Otherwise, what the attorney believes about the client is irrelevant.

If I’m accused of heinous crime, and it might look like I’m guilty, I would want someone to fight for me. There have been a lot of people convicted of violent crimes who later turned out to innocent. What if lawyers had not continued to fight for them?

17

Let me make a few quick comments on this argument. I’m not being as thorough as I should, but I want to try to clarify the debate a little.

The attorney cannot lie on behalf of his client nor can he allow his client to perjure himself. Saying he can’t “manipulate the law” is so vague as to be meaningless. That phrase is essentially a political one used when somebody doesn’t like the result. And I’d appreciate a cite for the argument that lawyers believe they “have the right to use every means possible to get acquittal.” What attorneys believe is that the government must prove its case in a criminal prosecution. This is done by raising reasonable doubt, not by lying or committing perjury.

Anyway, you are reading something into Article VI that isn’t there. The guarantee of assistance of counsel is a right of citizens. It is not a term of limitation upon defense attorneys. What Article VI means is that the government cannot prevent a person from having assistance of counsel. Quibbling over what “assistance” means is pointless because the Bill of Rights limits the government in its actions, not citizens.

Right. This means that an attorney can withdraw if they cannot represent a person in good conscience. It does not mean that a defense attorney cannot present a case that some find distasteful.

[QUOTE
Resolved: If a lawyer knows his or her client did the crime, and yet the client insists on trying to fool the jury into an acquittal, that is a repugnant action, period.
[/QUOTE]

You’re again using vague terms like “fool the jury.” If an attorney raises reasonable doubt, that’s not “fooling” a jury. That’s performing his constitutional duties. I imagine that, implicit in this argument is the view that attorneys lie and allow their clients to lie. That’s simply not true. And since you’ve raised the Avila case I’d appreciate you citing to a single instance in which the attorney lied or allowed his client to lie. My guess is that Avila didn’t even take the stand. And telling a jury that the story of a child shouldn’t be believed is not lying. Lying is deliberately misstating a fact. Credibility isn’t fact.

I don’t agree that it’s blood money, but I want to again point out that it’s not a violation of the Sixth Amendment.

How is any of this lying? He told the jury to question the credibility of young kids. Remember the daycare child molestation hysteria of the late 1980’s-1990’s. Kids swore they were taken underground and met Satan. Now, the kids in this case were probably telling the truth. But questioning the credibility of young witnesses is not inherently bad and certainly isn’t lying.

The lie detector test is irrelevant. Even if the attorney knew his client was guilty he doesn’t have to hand his client to the government. Remember, it’s the government’s job to prove guilt, not the defendant’s job to prove innocence. And I really have no idea why the attorney’s refusal to discuss the case has anything to do with the debate.

No. The government has to prove its case. Making the government prove its case is not manipulation and its not twisting the rule of law.

Pencil Pusher
Those rules prohibit false statements or advocating positions contrary to well-established precedent. Raising reasonable doubt by questioning a witness’s credibility is not a false statement and it certainly doesn’t run contrary to well-established precedent.

18

I was about to respond in detail, but I recognize it as fruitless. Just a few comments, instead then.
Shodan is correct. Your entire OP is premised on an assumption that Avila actually molested those two girls. You have no proof for that assumption.
Bricker is also correct. Your thesis simply changes the finder of guilt from the jury to the defense attorney. Why the hell is one attorney a better determiner of guilt or innocence than a jury?
That feeds into another of your underlying (but unspoken) assumptions - that juries are comprised of idiots. You may have contempt for your fellow citizens. Some of us don’t.

[Breaking down and discussing details]

::sigh:: those very same Model Rules specifically note that belief in a client’s guilt is not a valid basis for withdrawal.

[ack!! I just closed the site I got this quote from without noting the exact citation. If you want it, I’ll track it down again.]

If you had read the commentaries, you would have noted that the “repugnant” rule has nothing to do with protecting society. It has to do with protecting the defendant. An attorney should only withdraw if he cannot zealously represent his client’s interests.

So under the ABA Model Rules, Avila’s defense attorney’s belief in his guilt (if they actually believed that - another unproven assumption on your part) was not a basis for withdrawal. Were he to go to the court and asked to be relieved on that grounds, his request would be denied (and, indeed, he would have violated his professional obligation responsibilities and would be subject to sanctions).

So, what was it you were saying?

Sua

19

Couple of basic principles here.

  1. In the US, everyone accused of a crime is entitled to have his guilt or innocence determined by a jury.

  2. He is also entitled to have the assistance of a lawyer in presenting his case to the jury.

  3. Whether the defence attorney thinks his client is guilty or not is irrelevant. The accused is entitled to have his case presented to the jury with the assistance of a lawyer, and if the lawyer refuses to present the case because he suspects that the accused is guilty he is depriving him of that right.

  4. The defence attorney must not present a case which he knows to be false. But that’s “knows”, not “suspects” or “believes”. As the defence attorney is not a witness to the crime, usually the only way he will know that the defence case is false is if the accused has told him so. If the accused insists that his case is true and instructs the lawyer to present it to the jury, the lawyer will be obliged to do so. Otherwise he would be denying the accused the right to a jury trial.

20

So, in other words, the legal system seems to allow lawyers to snuggle into bed with scum-sucking criminals, until you actually think carefully and slowly about how the system as a whole really and truly works.

The commentator who provides the source of the OP’s argument (as noted in the spoiler box) makes his living on a television infotainment program that has absolutely nothing to do with thinking carefully and slowly, and everything to do with scoring points based on shallow emotional argument.

Par for the course for television, if you ask me. Searching for legitimately cogent and thoughtful analysis on the boob tube is a fool’s errand, and basing one’s philosophy on arguments seen and/or heard thereon is, in my opinion, similarly foolish.