Not that I don’t adore the Utah State Bar Journal, but I would have never seen this had it not been for Skelly.  It seems that there’s a criminal defense lawyer, in the very loosest sense of the phrase, who has decided that we should put aside all that lawyerly gobbledygook about zealous representation and become Jimminy Cricket.  His name is Ted Weckel, and his website is called “taxattorneyutah”, which should serve to enlighten everyone as to his dedication to criminal defense.  More about Ted later.

Ted wrote this article that the Utah Bar Journal published, called Helping Our Clients Tell the Truth: Rule of Professional Conduct 2.1 in Criminal Cases.  After extolling his expertise, based upon his one jury trial, Ted gets to the point:

If our clients tell us that they want to go to trial despite our conclusion that they are lying to us about their innocence, an interesting question presents itself. That question is whether Utah Rule of Professional Conduct 2.1 and American Bar Association Model Rule of Professional Conduct 2.1 (collectively, Rule 2.1) allow 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. [Emphasis happily added].

Do I laugh or cry?  It’s not that Ted has decided to reinvent the purpose of criminal defense to suit his personal vision of morality, but that the Utah State Bar Journal actually printed it rather than referred this nutjob for disbarment.

But Ted’s not done preaching yet.  Here’s more:

If our clients have never learned the value of making beneficial moral choices for themselves and those whose lives they negatively influence, then I say it is about time that they did. We as members of the criminal law bar are in the prospectively enviable position of being able to advise persons charged with crimes of their moral options and responsibilities on a regular basis.

Ted is no member of any “criminal law bar” that I’m aware of.  The criminal law bar that I’m aware of advocates the representation of their clients, not the imposition of personal visions of morality.  Even as I write this, I’m shaking my head in amazement that anyone could conceivably put such utter crap to paper. 

So who is Ted Weckel, criminal defense lawyer extraordinaire? 

 According to his website, this is what Ted, the lawyer who uses the url “taxattorneyutah” (because most criminal defense lawyers really want to promote themselves first and foremost as tax attorneys) has to say about himself:

I have a great deal of experience in this area of law. I represented indigent clients in serious felony cases in Washington, D.C. for approximately six years. I then represented indigent Utah clients in federal felony cases before the United States District Court of Utah, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit for approximately five years. I have also served as a Public Defender for the Virginia Indigent Defense Commission.

If I read this correctly, he’s never actually been retained by a paying client for representation.  Well, that could explain things a bit.  Maybe he falls into that trap where indigents are less worthy of being treated like “real clients,” and that good old Utah paternalism kicks in, since Ted the lawyer gets to give sermon to the poor, ignorant, unworthy, morality-challenged indigent defendants.

But if you head over to the main page of his website, you can see that Ted’s not exactly as concerned with ethics and morality as he would have you think.  Here are some pieces of the Ted Weckel puzzle:

I am a highly educated lawyer with a great deal of courtroom experience.

I practice in the following four areas:  family law, tax litigation, criminal defense, and bankruptcy. 

Some people wonder if it is better to hire a lawyer who “specializes” in one area of law, rather than choosing a practitioner who is well versed in a variety of subject areas. Actually, it is unethical for lawyers to advertise or represent that they specialize in an area of law. [My emphasis again]

Now, were I not such a gentleman, disinclined to disparage people for being hypocritical, arrogant pissants, I might write something unsavory about Ted’s character.  After all, has he not just puffed the virtue of his being a criminal pretender while stating (not suggesting, but stating) that people who actually do criminal defense are unethical for saying so? 

But that’s not the way I wish to approach this fellow who the Utah State Bar promotes as a paragon of legal ethics by virtue of his displacing defense with a passion play.  Instead, I would merely suggest that he’s probably not the sort of lawyer that I would want representing any person accused of a crime.  And you thought Utah was a weird state before.