Do you think defense attorneys who defend cops who unjustly killed Black people—or people in general—are ‘bad people’? Like the lawyer who defended the cop that killed Sonya Massey—were they ‘bad people’?
Do you think defense attorneys who defend cops who unjustly killed Black people—or people in general—are ‘bad people’? Like the lawyer who defended the cop that killed Sonya Massey—were they ‘bad people’?
Too hard to determine.
But as long as lawyers decide which cases to take, I’ll struggle saying that a lawyer in a situation like that is a good person.
Not because they defend someone that is, in all likelihood, guilty, but because their reasons to do so are generally just money, or a sick enjoyment of “winning” despite their client being obviously guilty.
I had this lawyer present a class, where he made us watch a movie about a guy trapping people in traps that trigger based on the amount of people that watch it on a live stream.
He first started saying that it wasn’t the guy’s fault, but the viewers’ that know that connecting to the stream triggers the trap. I told him that if I put bear traps in front of his door, and he steps on them, he wouldn’t say “ah, my bad, I triggered the trap so it’s my fault”. He couldn’t counter that, so he just admitted that he would try to defend him anyway, to see if he could manage to flip things and make him be found innocent, and sort of “win” against the spirit of the law.
This guy was also saying that he likes to only pick the more dramatic cases, because they’re more interesting. It was clearly only a game for him.
Just assign cases randomly, no money or picking involved, and things would get better, and we wouldn’t have to wonder whether a lawyer is a piece of shit for defending someone or not.