The newspaper headline after the verdict played up the politics: Tea party member gets 8 years for attacking Obama supporter. Of course, sensationalist headlines are nothing new, and certainly the political angle made for a more interesting story.
But the headline his lawyer would have written was more disturbing.
Headline should have read: Tea Partyer Gets 8 years for Attacking Obama Supporter, Despite Efforts of His Liberal Blogger Lawyer. That’s right, I had to defend this tea partyer, who destroyed the nose of an Obama supporter with a pool cue.
This comes from a blogger at Dolphin Kazoo named Brighton, who described himself as
a 50-year old attorney and former judge living in suburban Atlanta. My passions are classical music, constitutional law, poetry and macroeconomics.
His passions don’t interest me in the slightest. What does is his inability to see how his political zeal both influenced his defense of his client, and his disgraceful post-trial conduct. A disease has infected many on the internet who find themselves incapable of distinguishing between their politics and their duty.
Brighton, it appears, does some criminal defense law. Given the outcome of the case, there’s no reason to assume he does it very well, though a loss isn’t indicative. Rather, it’s Brighton’s patting himself on the back for being able to defend this tea party miscreant, proving how big a person he is as a liberal.
I did not defend his actions by bashing the President; not only would that have been phony for me, it wouldn’t have worked. Under Georgia law, there is no jury nullification, and you can’t justify a physical attack with a political argument.
All in all, I tried very hard to just be a good lawyer, hold my nose, and leave the politics out of it. Before the jury came back and put my client in jail, Mr. Morgan told me I did a good job. I was satisfied that I had not let my politics infect my obligations as a defense lawyer.
According to Brighton, indigent defense in his neighborhood is handled by experience lawyers assigned to represent the poor. Is there a box to check off about political party affiliation? Clearly, this was a critical aspect of the defense, given that Brighton was constrained to “hold his nose” while defending this scum. How proud he was that he muddled through it, “did a good job,” despite the defendant’s abhorrent politics. Maybe he should get a statue attesting to his political benevolence.
When a lawyer defends a person accused of murder, does he concern himself about being a phony? Is the defense contingent on what the lawyer thinks of the crime? Or the politics of the criminal? Never. At least never if the lawyer belongs in the trenches, entitled to hold another person’s life in his hands. That Brighton would think to mention it, that he had to “hold his nose and leave politics out of it” to defend his client, smacks of his incapacity to be a criminal defense lawyer.
We do not support the crime by defending the criminal. We do not concern ourselves with his politics, eating habits, television preferences or favorite color.
One of my friends pointed out that by losing, I disqualified a Republican voter (convicted felons can’t vote). But defense lawyers always feel bad when their clients are sent off to prison, even when they are of questionable political orientation and engage in violence. I don’t know why.
Even when they are of questionable political orientation? Are you nuts? Brighton is infected with the disease of politics, a malignancy that preclude his ability to recognize how his political fervor colors his thinking. It causes blindness to ones faults and inability to understand and fulfill one’s duty. In his case, it appears the disease is terminal.
This isn’t the perspective of the criminal defense lawyer. This isn’t the perspective of a real liberal, not that it matters. This is what becomes of a person when politics infects their very being to the point where they are incapable of comprehending how their misguided zeal has undermined their obligation to their client.
The internet is filled with political zealots who suffer from this disease. The wells of courtrooms should not be. Your politics are your own business. Keep it out of the trenches.
H/T Ken at Popehat
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Though in the comments he denies it, I think it was also an inappropriate and unbecoming disclosure of information. Did this defendant tell the lawyer/blogger to go ahead and tell the world that his girlfriend was being evicted? Did the girlfriend?
Ugh.
The more I read about this, the more I am offended by that lawyer. Griping that he “had to defend” someone with differing political views immediately calls into question the quality of his defense.
There certainly is a left/liberal echo chamber in the defense bar. So he probably thought this was a perfectly acceptable, and perhaps even coyly self-promoting, thing to say. (I personally think criminal defense is a more fitting calling for the limited-government conservative than for the crusading liberal, but that’s a whole nother rant.)
It does sound like the client did wrong. The victim and others were taunting him for disliking Obama, and eventually he’d had enough and cracked one across the face with a pool cue. Not exactly a justifiable reaction. (Not sure if 8 years in prison was warranted, but I don’t know the defendant’s prior record or other factors that might have been important.)
Also, the defendant couldn’t have been a tea party member at the time of the incident, because it hadn’t even come into existence yet. It’s certainly possible that he joined while the case was pending. If his counsel was already offended by his differing political preferences, this cannot have improved his willingness to do a thorough job for his client.
And the fact that his client “considers himself a tea party member” only came out during the client’s own testimony at trial. So the defense attorney elicited that information, which was not publicly known beforehand, and then uses that same information to illustrate why he had to hold his nose to defend him? Ugh.
While you are correct about the criminal defense bar leaning to the left, we’re not (as you know) at all unified in our politics, and certainly not all dogmatic liberals or even necessarily Democrats. The presumption that he can put himself on a pedestal for having defended a client despite his politics doesn’t merely offend me, but outrages me.
And that the defendant violently assaulted another person is hardly novel in our business. We defend because that’s what we do, no matter what flavor the defendant prefers.