The first post on Simple Justice, long before the regular readers today even knew of its existence, was entitled “Justice is a funny thing.” It reflects my pragmatic view of the system and my role of criminal defense lawyer. We aren’t advocates for justice. We’re advocates for defendants accused of crimes. This upsets those who want to climb up on the soapbox.
Many readers, and particularly many commenters, wear the helmet that Cervantes placed on Don Quixote. They get on a soapbox to rail against injustice. These people tend to be shocked when I dismiss their naiveté, or fail to applaud their cries for justice. They expect me to stand behind them 100% and provide them with a platform for their views. They turn on me for my failure to do so, whether because I disagree or because I don’t allow Simple Justice to become a church to the cause. They can’t begin to understand why.
Here’s the deal. I join with others to expect and demand justice from the government, the police, the prosecutors. These are institutions of government, the existence of which depends on their serving the purposes for which we have given them power and authority to control the lives of others. It’s my belief that these institutions must be held to their purpose or they have no reason to exist.
But criminal defense lawyers are not the opposite of these institutions. Our existence is not to serve justice, as some mistakenly assert. Our existence is to defend clients using whatever means the law allows, with the single-minded zeal our clients deserve. This means that we are often the enemies of justice, to the extent that justice is defined as the outcome that best serves the greater good. This means that if we do our jobs properly, guilty people will walk free.
I see the audience at Simple Justice as being lawyers and sophisticated non-lawyers. But I have no control over who reads this stuff. I frequently get comments, often prolix, barely comprehensible rants, tangentially related to a post and screaming about Freedom, and Due Process and the like. Most readers never see these comments, as I delete them as soon as I see them. They are the rants of ideologues who, their fervor aside, present a simplistic, usually ignorant, perspective. They bring nothing intelligent to the discussion, even though I may well be sympathetic to their cause.
This happens with lawyers as well, unfortunately. Usually young lawyers, naive and full of their own self-importance, believing that thoughts that just popped into their heads are so valuable and original that they must be shared with others. Sometimes, I try to talk these lawyers off the ledge, but they tend not to believe that they haven’t come up with a truly novel and important idea and get angry with me for trying. These lawyers tend not to last long here either. They get angry with me for speaking my piece here without letting them speak theirs. It’s unfair.
I’m often told that my posts here are properly characterized as “rants”. That may be, but it’s not how I see them. I write what I think, as clearly as possible. My suspicion is that my writing tends to be far clearer, and stronger, than many others, which makes them appear rant-like in contrast. From where I stand, the problem is not me, but others in their failure to present a point of view clearly or forcefully. So many people write posts that, after reading them, leave you either unclear as to their point or so equivocal that they can wiggle out of their opinion as needed. Many writers are deathly afraid of writing what they think lest someone disagree. I do not admire people who are too afraid to state their true opinions, even if unpopular or potentially contrary to their carefully-crafted marketing persona.
At least the ideologues, stupid as their comments often are, have hard opinions. At least they have the guts to write what they mean. This is tempered by those who use absurd names, like “Truth Seeker” or “Voice of Reason,” which almost invariably assures us that they are the views of a nutjob. This, by the way, is a word of caution to anyone who is inclined to post under such names; Chances are very good that I will assume you’re insane and either delete or ignore whatever you post. Just because you belief your thoughts to be the “truth” doesn’t mean they are, or that they are worthy of consideration. Sorry, but if they don’t pass muster with me as offering anything worthy of consideration, they are subject to deletion. You are free, of course, to start your own blog and post your thoughts to your heart’s content, but I don’t have to let you use my bandwidth.
If you expect to find a sympathetic ear at Simple Justice for those who are on a mission for justice, you might find be disappointed. First and foremost, I am a criminal defense lawyer. I defend people accused of crimes. They don’t come to me for justice; they come to me to win. That’s what I try to do. My commentary is colored by my role as a criminal defense lawyer. For my intended audience, this comes as no surprise. Ideologues, however, are not pragmatic.
Other criminal defense lawyers may well believe that they stand for justice. I stand for clients.
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Thank you for keeping your blog focused to enlighten those about the Justice system from your perspective. Your blog
is very helpful to me and others from the public who are seeking a better understanding of how the Justice System works. Those of us who have been unjustly dragged into the criminal justice system and been victimized by it of course are angry and want reforms…overnight! LOL We only have our lawyer to obtain our goal: justice We believe justice is a ‘not guilty’ verdict and restitution. LOL That’s not how the Justice System works and we need lawyers like you and your blog to help us understand why Justice isn’t what we were brought up to believe.
It appears the Criminal Justce system is best served for the most serious felony crimes. It appears that in Civil law, politics plays a key role.
The public is not happy with the Justice System; in particular with your profession. Why aren’t lawyers lobbying for reforms? Too many in your profession get into Politics changing laws to benefit themselves, your profession and Government and not the average citizen. Minorities have special laws to protect them and the affluent and politically connected can buy a favorable outcome whether they deserve it or not.
There are many things that can be done to improve/reform the Justice System and Attorneys as a group can make a difference;i.e., Prosecutors should work for justice not conviction. Evidence should be turned over to the defense immediately instead of dragging the accused to hearings every few weeks to have the prosecutor push for a plea. There should be summary judgments for
crminal cases like they have in civil law to protect the innocent from the emotional and financial trauma of the process. Probate and Juvenile courts easily victimize family’s in their ‘secret’ court proceedings and this Judge/Attorney/Guardianship Racket is easily abused for profit by this lack of transparency. No Judge should be able to deny a citizen their right to choose their own professional evaluator as professionals who are court appointed work for the court and not in the best interests of the citizen. This Guardianship Racket is so profitable, it has slipped over into Family courts.
There is no Firewall between the Justice System and the other two branches of Government and the Governments’ interests are influencing and obstructing Justice in these courts. Vulnerable citizens: elders, disabled and kids are being taken away from their families and homes for the federal taxdollars and billing the family for the governments’ care of their loved ones. It’s the biggest SCAM on American Family’s today and your profession is playing a large part for profit.
Sorry, I’m ‘ranting’. Feel free to cut and paste any part of my comment for a response or delete completely will not be taken in offense. Your insight is very much appreciated.
Deborah,
You’ve been one of my favorite commenters for a while now. You’re comments, which take defense lawyers to task right along with everyone else in the system, are critical reminders to those on my side of the well that those who take short cuts, go for the quick buck, burn their clients, that this isn’t about them but about the defendants, and that they notice.
Keep holding our feet to the fire. And if some lawyer gets burned, tough nuggies.
“~~ those who use absurd names, like “Truth Seeker” or “Voice of Reason,” which almost invariably assures us that they are the views of a nutjob ~~”
Not all of us!
Which is, of course, what Justice White said, dissenting and concurring in U.S. V. Wade (1967) (I’m omitting the footnotes):
Law enforcement officers have the obligation to convict the guilty and to make sure they do not convict the innocent. They must be dedicated to making the criminal trial a procedure for the ascertainment of the true facts surrounding the commission of the crime. To this extent, our so-called adversary system is not adversary at all; nor should it be. But defense counsel has no comparable obligation to ascertain or present the truth. Our system assigns him a different mission. He must be and is interested in preventing the conviction of the innocent, but, absent a voluntary plea of guilty, we also insist that he defend his client whether he is innocent or guilty. The State has the obligation to present the evidence. Defense counsel need present nothing, even if he knows what the truth is. He need not furnish any witnesses to the police, or reveal any confidences of his client, or furnish any other information to help the prosecution’s case. If he can confuse a witness, even a truthful one, or make him appear at a disadvantage, unsure or indecisive, that will be his normal course. Our interest in not convicting the innocent permits counsel to put the State to its proof, to put the State’s case in the worst possible light, regardless of what he thinks or knows to be the truth. Undoubtedly there are some limits which defense counsel must observe but more often than not, defense counsel will cross-examine a prosecution witness, and impeach him if he can, even if he thinks the witness is telling the truth, just as he will attempt to destroy a witness who he thinks is lying. In this respect, as part of our modified adversary system and as part of the duty imposed on the most honorable defense counsel, we countenance or require conduct which in many instances has little, if any, relation to the search for truth.
I agree that in a trial or motion practice a defense attorney’s task is to win the trial or motion, zealously representing the client’s interests within the bounds of the law.
But when the facts and the risk-reward ratio favors a compromise it’s different. You have to find common ground with your opponent and the judge in order to negotiate in the first place, and that common ground is, or ought to be, ideas of justice and mercy. An aggressively partisan approach in that context can be a disservice to the client and the system at the same time.
And beyond that, though this is not relevant in the narrow sense, it would be more than unfortunate if a prosecutor with a sense of decency, justice and mercy were routinely punished for it by being taken advantage of in a negotiation where the other side is unwilling to concede and take into account even the most obvious things in its zeal to “win” for the client.
You can’t punish prosecutors for being reasonable and decent and then complain that they’re not reasonable and decent. I mean you can, but it’s an indefensible position logically.
You’ve managed to completely miss the point of the post.
Completely? Come on. Maybe a little.
Completely. That’s harsh.
I don’t want to impose, but if you get the chance I would be interested in a bit more explanation, because it is possible that I really just don’t understand the view you are expressing very well.
I don’t want to take up a lot of your time and bandwidth on it though. Whatever you feel like.
My posts tend to be a bit more nuanced. If you look at old posts (of which there are more than 2500 at present), you will see that I’ve discussed the aspects that struck you in this post in detail elswhere. This one, on the other hand, is about commenters who are sympathetic to the defense mistakenly believing that they have ideological ownership of justice, and that because Simple Justice is a criminal defense blog, they are entitled to use it as a platform for their simplistic, and often erroneous, rants about it.
Except I use paragraph breaks, while Whizzer just runs on and on.
Damn. Now you’re digressing into one of the great loves of my life: paragraph breaks. And, of all of them, it’s one of the most gratifying and one of the most reliable.