In the New York, a former Mets minor leaguer cum actor was accused of the brutal killing of a helpless cat.  Joe Petcka has been castigated in the media for an act which, if committed, is disgusting and disgraceful.  So much for the media learning anything from the Duke case.

But I do not write about the defendant, but rather his lawyer, Charles Hochbaum.  For the offense of representing Petcka, Chuck Hochbaum has received a flurry of threatening emails attacking him for representing Petcka.  Some of the emails come from people who claim to be attorneys.  The gist of these emails are clear: By representing this defendant, the lawyer is as sick and horrible a human being as the perpetrator of this horrific crime.  And deserving of attack as much, if not more so, than the defendant.

I can appreciate that some laypeople have some difficulty distinguishing between the attorney and client, and attribute to the attorney the evil they perceive in the client.  As if, by representation, the lawyer endorses the criminal.  Or perhaps worse, the lawyer becomes a party to the crime, like a co-conspirator, by serving the cause of freeing the miscreant.  Wrong, but understandable in a twisted yet ignorant way.

But lawyers attacking other lawyers for being lawyers?  That’s just pathetic.  They should — no, must — know better.  True, as argued to Chuck, he could have turned down the case and stood proud of his refusal to represent an accused cat killer.  But the representation of the despised is the highest order of criminal defense.  I am not saying that criminal defense lawyers are under obligation to take any case that walks in their door, or that they have no right to turn away a defendant whom they simply cannot stomach.  But they are similarly entitled to do their sworn duty and defend those who are accused and hated.  Someone has to, and that’s our role in our system of criminal justice.

Chuck Hochbaum deserves our praise, not threats, for doing his job in the face of such public outrage.  Not because he supports cat killing, which I’m sure he does not, but because he fulfilled his role in our system despite being subject to attack.  I wonder how long it will take before some psycho threatens the life of his family.  It isn’t always fun and exciting to be a lawyer.