Proverbs 12:6

With thanks to Life, Love & Laughter, from a March 2009 comment to a March 2006 post on a similar theme.

MN: " 'How can you defend those people?' We are 'those people.' "

From In The Fray:

A day in the life of a public defender - Advocating for the indigent in rural Minnesota

Judge Richard Posner... once wrote, “[a] bare-bones system for the defense of indigent criminal defendants may be optimal.” How pleased he would have been watching me practice on that day...

Don't need to convince me

Latest response to the "How can you defend those people?" perennial, from Austin Defender:

How Do You Do It?

... I don’t know whether my client is guilty. I know what he says, what the police say, and what the evidence shows. I may have an opinion, or a guess, or even a pretty good idea. But I don’t know. Unlike in the movies, I didn’t get to see what happened...

"No offense..."

By David J. Barend, from Exhibit A Boston:

What It’s Like Defending ‘The Guilty’: Thoughts From a Criminal Defense Attorney

“I just don’t see how you can represent these people. I mean, what if someone killed one of your relatives? How would you feel about that?”

“That depends. Are you throwing in-laws into the mix?”

It's not just a job, it's an adventure

Once, my kind were as numerous as the mighty bison and the migratory hippie, and we roamed the courtrooms of this land armed with our "liberalism" and our concern for the "underprivileged." Now the younglings are explaining to me this new path that we trod. From the law student at I Immediately Regret This Decision:

As of 8:30 AM on Monday I will be officially employed. I'm working for a local public defender but I don't know whether to be excited or bummed... What's funny about all this is that I hope to be a prosecutor once I graduate...

... to the guest blogger at Public Defender Dude:

First, to be a PD you have to kind of fall into it. The vast majority of PDs that I know in this day and age in California were not necessarily raised as "liberals" who like helping the "underprivileged," code in my book for minorities. That is something that happened in the sixties and the seventies. Some of those PDs are still around, even in my office. But not many.

No, where I am from the majority of PDs fell into criminal defense because they wanted a job and the PD hired. We have a number of people who wanted to work for the DA but couldn't get hired. We have a number who were civil and got tired of it and came to the PD. As I said, most just sort of fall into it...

... to keep my middle-aged p.d. head from shaking, I'm thinking of all the cool young lawyers who, rather than fall into indigent defense work, strive for it heartily and dive into it enthusiastically. I know they exist - I've worked with many, and hired a few myself. Others I know from reading their blogs.

"Skelly,"
P.D.
(something that happened in 1988)

Empathy, patience, and a game of chess

Interesting perspective from a still - relatively - junior colleague, from Newsweek:

Equal Before The Law - As A Public Defender, I Must Often Challenge Prejudices, Including My Own, For My Clients

When I first started my job, I thought like a social worker. I justified representing those who were guilty because I believe I could help them... After two years, my conscience no longer requires such justification...

Actually, in 20 years of practice, internally I've travelled in the opposite direction of this p.d. Your (and everyone's) mileage may vary, of course.

Via the ABA Journal, Representing ‘Those People,’ Young PD Seeks Justice.

National Public Defender Radio

Recent interviews on NPR:

Public Defenders Have Their Say

Public defenders protect the constitutional rights of poor defendants charged with crimes. But they're overworked and under-respected. Farai Chideya speaks with Rick Jones — deputy director of the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem (NDS) — and Brian Wait, Senior Public Defender in the Orange County Public Defender's Office...

Audio here.

And as lagniappe, here's the American RadioWorks documentary, Locked Down: Gangs in the Super Max.

TX: bless you, Temple Mims

Debate in the Tyler Morning Telegraph:

Wingnut wishes physical harm on family of criminal defense lawyer.

Criminal defense lawyer's 14-year-old daughter responds.

Winner: 14-year-old.

Update: thanks to Scott, Grits for Breakfast guru and Tyler townie, this item made it all the way to Fark!

One way to build character

I have been sitting on the link to this Utah Bar Journal article by Ted Weckel for weeks now, coming back to it now and then, hoping to draft my response in a coherent way. I think I've failed in the attempt because my response to it changes from week to week, and I find myself of two minds (or more) as to what he's recommending. So here's the link - maybe you'd like to chew on it:

Helping Our Clients Tell the Truth: Rule of Professional Conduct 2.1 in Criminal Cases

(T)he fact remains that, on many occasions, we suspect that our clients are guilty of some crime – either after we have talked with them or after we have conducted a thorough investigation. If our clients tell us that they want to go to trial despite our (emphasis added) conclusion that they are lying to us about their innocence, an interesting question presents itself. That question is whether... American Bar Association Model Rule of Professional Conduct 2.1 allow(s) us to advise our clients of their moral obligations to be honest to the courts, themselves and any victims, and to consider whether they should plead guilty, if they are in fact guilty, and accept responsibility for what they have done. We would provide such advice not only because the evidence may be stacked against our clients and a plea offer would benefit them – but because doing so would develop our clients’ character and weaken their ability to commit fraud upon the courts through their lawyers...

I take it that the author's approach is the same whether or not the client testifies. Perhaps you can see how I might be intrigued but not onboard. In my experience, vigorously confronting one's own clients is likely to make things go BOOM, and seldom in a productive way. Being in juvenile court adds a whole other layer of considerations, too.

Update: Scott Greenfield of Simple Justice chews it, shreds it, and spits it out like an enraged Malinois. As we southern Idahoans say, "Jiminy!"

"Not because it is easy but because it is hard"

Reasons for becoming a public defender, from Inherent in the Concept of Ordered Liberty:

...so that I could advance the cause of social justice...

...(to) see human dignity as a greater value than guilt or innocence...

...in order to be a voice for the voiceless...

...because I suffer from an excess of empathy...

The process is the punishment

Every new public defender should have this much insight; from Scoplaw:

Loss of Liberty

I hear ‘loss of liberty’ used in the courthouse. I’ve used it myself. But I often wonder if someone sitting in the jury box really knows what that means, what the “loss of liberty” truly costs a person... I often wonder if they know what the accused may have endured, just to get to this point. To take a step back, here’s a quick overview of the “cost” of a criminal accusation (just the accusation, not a conviction)...

"Because sometimes they're innocent"

From The Ice Belongs Out There, Not in Here:

Law Talk: Defending Guilty People Isn't Easy

The problem with people who are genuinely guilty is: they're not going to present like innocent people. The evidence is not going to help you get them off. You will be looking at absolutely overwhelming evidence screaming THIS GUY IS SO GUILTY, and it is so damn hard to put that aside and say I'm gonna do the best job I can...

But sometimes, they aren't guilty...

Luke 23:43

Another way to reply to the "how can you defend 'those people'?" question, courtesy of Woman in Black:

"We defend the people who are right next to Jesus on the cross."

"The ever present 'How can you represent a guilty person?' question"

From Running Down a Dream:

Straight Into the Night Our Hearts Were Flung

The client asked the attorney what he thought the client's prospects were, and the attorney decided not to provide a percentage approximation, but instead answered the question this way: "I can tell you this. I'll do the same thing for you that I would hope you would do for me if I were sitting in your chair and you were sitting in mine..."

If you don't know me by now...

L' Audace gets the "how can you defend 'those people'?" question.

And from her mom, no less.

People who need people (are not necessarily the luckiest people in the world)

Another colleague fields the "how can you represent Those People?" question:

I'm a public defender because people need people. Because people are better than the worst thing they've ever done. Because I still believe there's some inherent goodness in almost everyone. Because without me people are just a docket number in the court system...

New p.d. blog, same old dogs

Live from Farmington, New Mexico, it's Of a Public Defender's Life:

I am a public defender because I care about Truth, Justice, the Constitution (and fuzzy puppies).

(and it's an excuse for posting pictures of my fuzzy puppies)

Frankly, yes

Someone came to my blog today by asking Google,

"should a christian lawyer defend a guilty man?"

I hope that the questioner also clicked on this essay from an Australian criminal defense colleague:

Being a Christian in Criminal Work

My answer is yes, unashamedly and in all circumstances yes...

Is there any job satisfaction for a Christian in a world of criminals and crime? Most certainly there is. Our Christian understanding is based on our own personal failure and unworthiness of God's love. We know that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Yet we also know that as individuals we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous, and that he is the propitiation for our sins.

A Christian defender with the spiritual understanding that man fails to keep not just God's standards but human ones as well has the rare opportunity to represent another human being. He can, by his ability to tease out the complexities of evidence or to mitigate for a more lenient sentence, affect the future of the person he is representing. Of course, lawyers do not serve the sentence as Christ did for us but their very role of representing others seems to me to be one of the highest callings known to man...

A good answer

From CrimBlog:

How can you represent someone that you know is guilty?

Again, this answer will vary for different people. For me, it comes in part from my religious beliefs. I believe that God wants us to love all humankind, and that we should try to see the spark of God’s creation in everyone. Everyone should have somebody who is on their side, even when they’ve made a mistake—even if it’s a terrible mistake. I’m lucky enough to have had family and friends in my life who gave me unconditional love and support. Many of my clients have never had anyone who would stand by them like this. Also, I’m a crabby, anti-authoritarian troublemaker, who just likes “stickin’ it to The Man.”

Moral lawyer

A New Jersey reader arrived here today from the Google query, "are lawyers amoral?" That's good, because going back to the same page pointed me to an essay by one of my favorite answerers of this question and that other perennial, "how can you defend someone who's guilty?"

Here's Professor Joseph Allegretti with, The Lawyer As A Professional - Christ and the Code: the Dilemna of the Christian Attorney

Once there was a first-year (law) student who had to deal with a pompous and overbearing professor. One day she was called upon, and after the usual amount of pressure and pain, she succeeded in stating the holding of the case. As she finished she blurted out, "But it's just not right!" To which the professor responded cooly, "Listen, if you want to study what's right, you should have gone to divinity school..."

Several questions come to mind. Does it make sense to talk of a lawyer's vocation? In what ways can a lawyer's work be a vehicle of service to God and neighbor? More concretely, how would viewing law as a vocation affect the attorney's relationships to clients, courts, and adversaries?...

My guess is that such a model will lead to some surprising results. At times we may find ourselves less committed to the single - minded pursuit of our client's interests, while at times we may find ourselves more deeply committed to the client than ever before. For example, maybe the hard question is not "How can an attorney defend the guilty?" Maybe the hard question is "Given the example of Jesus, why don't we do it more often?"

Thanks, Professor. Thanks, Google.

Bonus link: then there's this joke about amoral lawyers -
"Two public defenders were walking down the road..."

Update: a murder trial and a Sunday School lesson