Apples and Oranges?
Should a defense attorney take more pride in the acquittal of a client whom he or she knows to be innocent or in the acquittal of one whom he or she knows to be guilty?
posted by brainmarket @ 3:42 PM
Friday, December 16, 2005
Should a defense attorney take more pride in the acquittal of a client whom he or she knows to be innocent or in the acquittal of one whom he or she knows to be guilty?
6 Comments:
The question should be does a prosecutor feel better about convicting an innocent person rather than a guilty one? No, that never happens.
. . . and before anyone goes off the deep end, this is a well worn joke in prosecutors' offices.
Guilty, for sure. Harder to win then the truth is not on your side, not to mention inculpatory statements made by the defendant.
Don't let Nebur see this post, he thinks OJ the "brother" [sic] is innocent.
Well, Nebur thinks Tookie's some sort of hero for murdering people. (He's a revolutionary, doncha know. Killing "The Man" is a good thing.)
I think there ought to be more pride in getting the innocent acquitted. That's how the system is supposed to work. It's doubtless more clever to get the guilty off, but I'd think less satisfying.
Neither of the thoughts attributable to me are true. For the record, 1) I have no interest in whether OJ murdered people, and 2)I do not in any way shape or form advocate the killing of anyone. Period. I stood a few hundred yards away as a man was killed. I stood vigil, as poison entered his veins, snuffing his life. Tomorrow, I will go to his funeral. I weep for him, and all victims of violence.
I am a pacifist. I will never participate in the taking of a life, nor will I celebrate in it. There are no heroes in the tragic tale of Mr. Williams. Only murder victims: Tookie's victims (however many there may be), Tookie himself, and the children that will continue to die from the problem that Tookie fought to end.
To answer your question, brain, I have had no greater feeling of professional accomplishment that when I have helped an innocent man to get acquitted. That's why we do what we do.
No, you do what you do to defend the constitution. It should be as emotionally disconnected as that. Tookie should not have been put to death, as I vehemently oppose the death penalty, but I think he was an idiot and did much more harm for society than good. Some ghettoed-out loser that made headlines cause he's black. Plain as that. On top of that, he was even an idiot, toboot.
I looked at your blog Nebur to find a quote, and I quote verbatim, "Nimiwey-OJ is innocent, the jury said so."
Nebur, I believe you DID say "OJ is innocent, the jury said so." If this means you have no opinion but are simply stating what the jury found, then its just a matter of legal inaccuracy--the jury found OJ NOT GUILTY as opposed to INNOCENT.
Tookie was a bandwagon with barely enough room for all the white liberals to jump onto. Shall I be seeing you or Jesse Jackson outside San Quentin next time we (and I do mean WE--not THEY) execute a fat white serial killer?
When we participate in democracy by voting, we endorse the results of democracy, whether it is killing faux-revolutionaries such as Tookie or less sympathetic tinted people (as Dame Edna Everage used to say) in Iraq.
I find it hard to believe you are opposed to ALL forms of killing. I am sure even you could come up with SOME kind of justifiable killing. Would you not be a zealous advocate of a client charged with murder who claimed self-defense? Which brings me to my next point--answering my question from this post . . .
Should we really care as defense attorneys about the righteousness of our client's defenses? NO, we should not. If we think the reason for our work is anything other than than perpetuation of the myth of American justice, we are sorely mistaken. We are mere jousters who should take pride in the hardest fought victories, which would generally be acquittals of the guilty.
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