BTW count me among those who had abevigodaed her and assumed she must have passed nearer the turn of the century.
As already mentioned the response would be “we fully understand she was a bigot and because we understand we judge her accordingly”.
as being someone who accepted whatever outside influences may have affected her attitudes in this matter, and apparently never questioned or doubted them. Something which she had the agency to do, even if she only kept her doubts to herself. Or, much worse, as someone who knew what she said wasn’t true, and said it anyway to gain influence and attention.
The man who defended Rush Limbaugh, William Kennedy Smith, and Jeffrey Epstein (among others) has died. I hope he’s experiencing a warm reception today.
Unless you can show he did something unethical, I’m not seeing why he should suffer in hell. Even the worst offenders deserve representation in court. The fact they could afford someone as good as him isn’t his fault. The Perry Masonesque “Defense lawyers should only defend the innocent” attitude is ridiculous.
Sure, everyone gets a defense, but some people are just way better at it than homegrown prosecutors. Plus, a man with all that intelligence could have used it for something better than “they deserve all the defense their $$$ can buy.”
Just my opinion, muldoon.
Agreed. Everyone is entitled to due process which includes representation.
Even scumbags deserve lawyers.
Now, when those lawyers themselves break the law and violate ethics rules (like Trump’s lawyers tend to do), they can rot in Hell. But having a despicable client doesn’t make a lawyer a bad person.
Somehow people have conflated “entitlement to due process” with “the person doing the defending is not a bad person”, as though a legal right and a moral right are the same thing. And I don’t agree with the two of you about that.
Dominic Dunne’s essay on what happens when a highfalutin highly paid lawyer meets a public prosecutor gets to the point, though warning, it’s very long.
If you’re not interested in reading it, that’s fine, here’s a little amusing tidbit completely unrelated to our discussion:
Robert Kennedy Jr., an environmental lawyer who was there with his brother Michael, was dissatisfied with his seat. The courtroom was very small. There were sixteen seats for the public and sixteen seats for the media. The Kennedy family had three seats allotted to them, as did the family and friends of Patricia Bowman. Kennedy wanted to sit on the aisle, but a man and a woman were already sitting in the two aisle seats. He went over and asked them to change places. They refused. Rebuffed, he returned to his seat and glared at them. He then rose, passed the couple, and went to the bailiff in the rear of the courtroom to ask him to ask the people to move so that he and his brother could sit there. The bailiff said the seating was first come, first served.
Still not ready to give up, Kennedy went back to the couple and said, “We’d really like to sit here while Will is on the stand.” The woman replied, “We would have liked to sit in these seats when Patty was testifying.” “You don’t understand, we’re family,” said Kennedy, as if that would make them scramble. “No, you don’t understand, I’m family,” replied the man, who turned out to be Shawn O’Neil, one of Patricia Bowman’s stepbrothers, who was sitting with Anne Seymour of the National Victim Center.
It seems more like you’re conflating “a lawyer who defends a morally reprehensible defendant is a morally reprehensible lawyer.”
No, I’m saying they’re a morally reprehensible person.
ETA: also, as I said, it’s the way lawyers particularly like this lawyer approach the act of justice. Again, feel free to skim the Dunne article.
I skimmed it which was difficult because the shitty web page is half-covered by a demand that I sign up for a subscription. I found Roy Black mentioned but I didn’t see anything on a skim that seemed bad. And I’m not going to read an extremely long, boring article to dig up what you’re trying to hint at.
The part you quoted was a minor annoyance about courtroom seating (big deal) and had nothing to do with Roy Black.
…
Sorry, I missed that.