August 12, 2005

Pay attention folks. In 2012, this guy will be the Republican candidate for president.
posted by smallish bear 18 years ago
  • I had a client who climbed into the window of some family's house and stole some of the Christmas presents that were under the tree. The judge was openly calling my client "The Grinch" throughout the plea.
  • See, lawyers get a bad rap for defending people like that. It's a hard job, but absolutely necessary for our justice system. I have a lot of respect for the defense lawyers (whose clients aren't rich white businessmen and/or politicians).
  • Yeah, the legal system says that eveyone is entitled to the best possible defense, whether they're rich, poor, white, black, beige or in politics. I think the problem is not so much that all those guys some of us would like to believe are guilty because of their affluent status get to hire lawyers that they can afford to pay, but that the public defenders who are charged with defending poorer folks are either not interested in a true defense or haven't the time to wage one, at least in my neck of the woods. The ideal would be that the defence would be as capable as the prosecution. And, the lawyers that are actually hired by poorer people may not have the savvy to present a good defense. Here's a scenario for you. Maybe all lawyers should be made government employees, with promotions being based on whether they won their cases. No choice as to whom they defended/prosecuted. Heh.
  • I'm confused...are we discussing defense lawyers, The Grinch, or the 2012 Presidential election?
  • Either way, I think we're in for some tar-brushin' fun!
  • We're discussing how stupid Republicans are. Duh.
  • And how mean that mean old grinch is. Mean old grinch!
  • I wouldn't touch him with a 39 and a half foot pole!
  • nice.
  • That WaPo link has crashed Safari while attempting to open it, twice. Oh well. I didn't want to know...
  • Well you should be using a browser like Firefox.
  • My (well, our) couples counselor says I shouldn't use words like "should."
  • Works like a charm in Netscape 4.7! /liar
  • ...promotions being based on whether they won their cases I'd say this is one of the biggest problems with the current legal system. The prosecutor is only interested in a guilty verdict, regardless of the persons innocence. The defense is only interested a not guilty verdict, regardless of the persons guilt. Both are rewarded and promoted based on the number of cases won. There is no person in the system whose interests are to see justice being done. There's not a person who is involved who is required to make an effort to see that innocents go free while the guilty are punished. Some might try and say this is what a judge does, but it's not so. A judge is there to make sure specific rules are followed, the idea being that if those rules are followed, then other parts of the system are able to achieve their goals. Ideally those goals would be to ensure justice, but as I said above, their goals are totally different. Yes, I understand why the system is this way, but these are huge minuses that go along with the pluses. And this is at its best ideal, instead of the usual norm where both prosecution and defense both work towards convictions.
  • My (well, our) couples counselor says I shouldn't use words like "should." What about "shouldn't"?
  • I think that may have been Hawthorne's little joke. At least that's the way I read it.
  • Exactly, Mr. Knick.
  • You, too, Wolof.
  • "Little" being the operative word, indeed.
  • Oh, I thought the joke was a .. uh.. something else. I forget now that I know this one. Someting about therapy maybe. It was pretty good, too.
  • Luckily, all Republicans are reprehensible, innocence-robbing, knaves. Otherwise; the post, and subsequent "discussion" would make no sense. Wipes brow, in relief.
  • Is this the thread I come to to air my prejudices? They have been getting a tad musty of late...
  • I have a friend who is a defense attorney. Being fairly fresh out of law school, he has been dubbed the "Sick Fuck" attourney by his office. That means he gets to defend all the truly twisted scumbags that need to go away for hundreds of years. He tells me how this doesn't bother him, because he isn't there to keep them out of jail. He is there to make sure the police and the rest of the system do their job properly. He has won once (more than people who have been there 30 years), and it was because the cop was a dumbass. The Suck Fuck lost in appeal, thankfully. He has given me a whole new respect for public defenders. I just accidentally wrote "pubic defenders," and it made me giggle
  • You also accidently wrote "Suck Fuck" and it made me giggle.
  • We don't have a Public Defender's office here. So local attorneys can sign up on a list and get cases appointed to them that qualify for a court-appointed lawyer. I am on that list. I have a private practice and most of my clients are people who have hired me to represent them. Some of my clients are court-appointed because I am on that list. I do my best not to distinguish between the two when I am working on their cases.
  • I work for a PD's office. We have a bunch of idiots who plead everything on the first offer, but we also have some attorneys who are very dedicated to public interest law and work themselves ragged for their clients. From what I've seen of the distribution of lazy idiots among my town's private attorneys our office seems to be a pretty good cross-section. Our problem right now is that the local DA's office (full of law-and-order crazed folks who all despise one another and apparently themselves) now has a policy that if we don't take whatever is offered in sessions they won't negotiate in criminal court. Mark one for the slackers.
  • Snarks with frickin' lasers on their heads!
  • I'm looking into getting US citizenship so I can vote for this guy in 2012.
  • Good on you, 'nockle. That's the way it should be, unfortunate that it's not always that way. I once thought about law school, but decided I could never be objective enough. What bothers me most isn't punishment of the accused, but restitution for the victm.
  • >There is no person in the system whose interests are to see justice being done. There's not a person who is involved who is required to make an effort to see that innocents go free while the guilty are punished. To an extent, Knickerbocker. That may be true on the face of it, and indeed, in the more visible of cases and trials, but for the more mundane cases -- being the vast majority -- each side knows what the outcome is roughly going to be, and the judge knows what the outcome is going to be. The real work is in convincing all the parties concerned that that's what the result is going to be, and that it's a fair and just one. (Related to this, we have a different way of calculating wins and losses -- you win when you successfully predicted the outcome of a case, and if you lose, well, you had a bad judge.) For the most part, everything is fairly collegial, as the lawyers know that they'll be having to work with the guy across the aisle for the next thirty years, while the guy in the docket is not in your life for much longer. (In the larger cities, this changes, obviously, as you may never have to work across from that lawyer again.)
  • goetter, that's both sad and classic.
  • The prosecutor is only interested in a guilty verdict, regardless of the persons innocence. Crown attorneys in Canada have it drilled into them -- by their employers (the feds, or provincial attorneys general offices) and by the Bar associations during and after training -- that the duty of a Crown is to offer the bench whatever truth they find, be it favourable or detrimental to their case. It is well established that CA's have duties which go well beyond that of defence counsel, and as many as I've met (maybe 100), they all take it seriously. The only loophole, as such, is the duty to mention unfavourable caselaw, which is necessary only when "directly on point". But when it comes to evidence, you get it all whether it benefits prosecutor or defendant. As for our PD's, they seem to range here from exceptionally experienced, wise and compassionate, to wholly, if not negligently, incompetent. Luck of the draw.