Over at Balkinization, Brian Tamanaha, in the process of discussing the debacle of 300 guilty pleas in Iowa from “illegals” who were given a script and told to nod their head “si” every 30 seconds, decides to lob a hand grenade:

A colleague of mine once pithily said: “If you want to put people in jail, become a defense attorney.” I made my share of deals with prosecutors as a former Assistant Federal Public Defender (a long time ago). After reaching an agreement, we followed a standard script, usually dictated by the prosecutor and accepted by the judge.

Prosecutors want convictions; judges want to keep the cases moving along; defense attorneys have heavy case loads and don’t get paid much for any particular case; and an overwhelming proportion of criminal defendants have participated in some form of criminal conduct. Mix this all together and what you get is a “guilty-plea machine.” Only wealthy defendants are able to opt out of this system.

That’s the way it is…

There’s nothing more helpful than someone who projects their own inadequacies onto everyone else when it comes to characterizing the criminal defense bar.

Memo to Brian:  You don’t know jack.

There are two primary groups that comprise the larger group we call criminal defense lawyers.  There’s the group that you apparently belonged to, resigned to losing and rationalizing your lack of effort and effective representation by saying to yourself, “oh heck, they’re guilty anyway.”

Then there’s another group.  You probably don’t know about this group, because you were never a part of it.  It’s the group of criminal defense lawyers who try their best to defend their clients in every single case.  These are the people who DO NOT write “guilty plea” on their file before they even meet the defendant.  These are men and women who actually do their job, fulfill their obligation to their client and yes, even win some that you would have thrown in the garbage.  We don’t care if the defendant is “guilty”; We represent those accused of crimes.  All of them. 

If you want to describe your experience, and the quality of representation that you provided when you were a federal defender, be my guest.  But don’t begin to suggest that your little insider joke covers the gamut of the criminal defense bar. There are real lawyers out there who are really representing their clients.  Don’t smear them just because you weren’t one of them.

H/T Skelly