The fundamental work in this area, as lawyers like to say, is Law and Order. The criminal defense attorneys in that program are either stupid or unethical, or most likely not, both. In a nutshell, either way, the “lawyers” in these programs make us all look bad. They do some of the stupidest and dirtiest things imaginable.
Simpson, Robert Shapiro begins the first meeting of defense attorneys asking that among the approximately one thousand lawyers present in the courtroom they vote if they believe “O. They told Mansfield and his criminal defense attorney that the alleged victim would be a powerful witness in a trial. The explanation offered by academics for the “different mission” of criminal lawyers, which gives them so much freedom with respect to the truth, is that of the opposing judicial system. This is because these programs contain a lot of important things about what criminal defense attorneys actually do wrong.
Most defendants are lucky if their lawyer has time to investigate possible true defenses, much less to mount false defenses. It's true that some scientists falsify this data to become famous, and I'm sure that some lawyers could invent unfounded theories or manufacture evidence for the same reason. Nor is it an answer that says defense attorneys can't “know anything,” that they're not looking for the truth and shouldn't know. Two months after the indictment, his defense attorneys filed a motion asking the court to order the county prosecutor to reveal the exculpatory evidence.
The only person who didn't commit to telling the truth, to seeking it, much less to stick to it, is the defense attorney. On the first day of class, I was thrilled when he announced that they were going to put aside law books and focus on what defense attorneys really do. That's the answer most often heard from practicing attorneys about why any system that limits your defense doesn't make sense.
