That has nothing to do with what I’m talking about, I’m talking about a defense team that knew for a fact he was 100% guilty, actually helped destroy evidence and played the race card. Then relished in the fact they got a murderer to walk free, lusting for fame and fortune with thier ‘win’.Originally Posted by Joe in PNG
My whole point is how do you sleep at night after that.
So, should OJ have picked a less skilled defensive team? Been forced to use bargain basement lawyers? Been banned from hiring lawyers in the first place? Should his lawyers have been banned from using certain defensive tactics? Should he have been restricted to pro-bono representation, or his lawyers to a limited fee for their work?
That has everything to do with my point- even an obvious murder still has a right to Presumption of Innocence and a right to a vigorous legal defense. We don't set aside the 6th Amendment to the US Constitution because they appear to be guilty.
And here's a refresher:
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
"You win 100% of the fights you avoid. If you're not there when it happens, you don't lose." - William Aprill
"I've owned a guitar for 31 years and that sure hasn't made me a musician, let alone an expert. It's made me a guy who owns a guitar."- BBI
That's poor consolation to some schmo who ends up spending decades in prison for a crime he didn't commit.
If we have to march off into the next world, let us walk there on the bodies of our enemies.
The alternative seems to be his legal team shouldn’t have tried as hard, in which case they’d have to live with the knowledge they did a half ass job for their client (in addition to violating the ethical rules regarding zealous representation and basic professional standards). I can (and do) live with winning cases I should have lost much more easily than that.
I don’t get to throw the trial because I agree with the state that my client is guilty. That would be extremely unethical, to make an understatement.
Much smaller potatoes, but I was defending against a no contact order violation charge as a first year lawyer. Opposing counsel in the divorce case brought the charges as civil contempt but it’s still basically a criminal trial with that lawyer stepping into the shoes of a prosecutor. Opposing counsel showed up prepared to try the wrong one of half a dozen different violations my client was absolutely guilty of. He didn’t have a witness he needed, and I won that hearing by doing nothing but making hearsay objections after refusing to consent to a continuance or to trying the violation we didn’t technically have notice of. And, as a result, the state lost the chance to competently prosecute that violation due to double jeopardy. My guy avoided mandatory jail time only because the other lawyer flubbed it and I didn’t agree to cut him any slack for it.
I have lost zero seconds of sleep over that. I would lose sleep if I had consented to the continuance or trying a different charge, because that would have led to a conviction for my client that was totally avoidable (even if morally deserved) by some very basic lawyering.
I get that someone might think "I don't want to be a defense attorney, because I don't want to think I'm helping some horrible criminal evade justice". No one should do a job they don't want to do.
Similarly, I can understand someone thinking "I don't want to be a prosecutor, because to err is human, and I don't ever want to find out that 20 years ago I mistakenly sent an innocent to prison".
But as to what the ethics should be: what if I am wrongfully accused? I know for a fact I'm completely innocent, but there are those dozen (mistaken!!!) eye witnesses swearing I was the shooter when I was in fact home asleep in bed. Do I want a defense attorney who looks at all that and says 'this dude smells guilty to me, I'll just go through the motions on this one so this dangerous predator gets put away', or do I want one who thinks he will give me the absolute best defense he can, even if he thinks I am guilty? I kind of want the latter - and if I want it for myself, I can't really deny it to others.
Good riddance.
My last year of undergrad included a course taught by a practicing criminal defense attorney and a course taught by a detective for the local police department. I may not remember much useful information from those years but I remember those two vividly.
The defense attorney made a lot of the same points folks are making in this thread. People might like to bag on defense attorneys for helping bad guys go free but you can't ignore that people are sometimes wrongly accused and convicted. If you are ever wrongly accused, you will want the absolute best representation you can get.
Even the detective acknowledged there are people in jail or prison convicted for things they didn't do. Of course, he noted that calling them "innocent" may not be totally accurate, either.
Another point the defense attorney made was knowing that, if she provided a professional, competent defense and her client was still convicted, that ensured someone who might be a really bad dude wouldn't be released after an appeal due to anything she missed.
I think sometimes folks have a hard time understanding attorneys have to play a role as an unflinching advocate for their clients. After my brief time in criminal justice, I started working on contracts with attorneys in a business capacity. I had to understand and sometimes explain to my peers that the attorneys were always going to recommend terms most favorable to their company/client, even if they seemed unrealistic in practice. That was their job.
As far as OJ, it gave me a cold reality check to see the reactions of a few of my coworkers when he was found not guilty. They were happy even though they thought he did it. It made me sad to see how taking racial sides still dominates how some people think.
Last edited by Edster; 04-12-2024 at 11:51 AM.
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You keep going back to the legalities and that is not what I’m talking or debating, I understand and agree with all that.
I’m talking from a moral point of view, what OJ should have done is never killed those people.
I’m talking about the attorneys that knew for a fact he was guilty got him off and reaped the fame and monetary reward from it.
We can talked about the legalities till we are blue in the face, that doesn't change the fact his defense team knew for a fact he murdered two people in cold blood. I’m sure it makes them and others feel better to continually go back to the legalities of it.
But that doesn’t change my question, how do those dirtbags sleep at night.
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