Just so there is no confusion, let me tell you what the job of a criminal defense attorney is and isn't.
It isn't to "get you off" on a crime that you did commit.
It isn't so that you have someone to blame when you are sitting in jail.
It isn't to come up with wild alternate theories on who committed your crime.
It isn't to convince a jury that you didn't commit a crime you did.
It isn't to convince the judge that your feelings were hurt when you got arrested.
It is to offer the best defense they can based on your situation. If you did it then what can they do?
It is to keep you from getting convicted if you didn't do it.
I really believe that's what the framers had in mind. It sure makes more sense than what we have accepted as normal these days.
5 comments:
Makes sense to me. And although Mr. Perry Mason always won his trials, I don't believe he ever defended someone who he didn't believe was innocent. And of course, they always were so the ratings would be kept up ;)
Good post.
No, a job of a defense attorney is simply this:
To best represent their client within the bounds of the ethics rules. It is their job, and completely ethical I might add, to repersent whatever their client tells them to as long as the attorney does not know it is a lie.
Are you sure the framers intended for every criminal to get a lawyer. The sure as hell didn't offer it shortly after the revolution to war criminals.
This is a liberal court interpretation (one I personally agree with). It was unfair for the illiterate, uneducated, and indigent to be expected to defend themselves. This then expanded to be a right.
The job of a public defender is to ensure that you don't get totally rail roaded.
The job of a public defender is to ensure that you don't get totally rail roaded.
By "rail-roaded" do you mean convicted? If you did the crime then that's what you deserve.
My thesis: the notion that lawyers are somehow supposed to keep guilty people from getting convicted is absurd.
"My thesis: the notion that lawyers are somehow supposed to keep guilty people from getting convicted is absurd."
I think the theory is that the defendant's guilt or innocence is what a trial is supposed to prove...
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