Comment on Are defense attorneys ‘good people’?
dhork@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Every defendant in the US is entitled to a presumption of innocence, and the Prosecution is obligated to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt. So, a defense attorney can be seen as performing a valuable service, to keep Prosecutors in check, and make sure they are doing their jobs correctly.
But I do wonder sometimes if these defense attorneys ask their clients whether or not they did the thing, or if they expressly say “Don’t tell me whether or not you did it”…
andrewta@lemmy.world 1 week ago
A good attorney/a smart attorney is going to directly ask their client if they actually did it. There is 0% chance you can really defend your client if you don’t know if they did it or not. Because if you don’t know if they did , that means you also won’t have access to all of the information that the other side will have. And then you can pretty much guarantee a failure. By failure, I mean, having the Defendant wind up in jail.
And yes, I know the old statement of every pedophile should be in jail in every rapist should be in jail. But from the defense attorneys point of view, if your client winds up in prison, then you failed. You get too many fails and nobody’s gonna hire you for defense. Even the people are actually innocent will not hire you.
Now I do understand the intent of the original posters comment of why would somebody want to defend somebody who admits they raped or killed.? As you said, everybody is the right to a presumption of innocence. Because you don’t push back on the argument in every case, what will happen is you’ll wind up with innocent people in prison. What it does it make sure that the prosecution when they come to the courtroom, hopefully has their act together. And is fully prepared. If you cut corners on one case you’re probably going to cut corners on another case. This just ensures the system functions.