The client's guilt or innocence does not lie with the lawyer, but with the jury. Even known criminals have rights and deserve to have them.
Criminal defense
attorneys have a professional ethical obligation to defend their client, even when the person is guilty. An experienced criminal lawyer will know how to manage a case to obtain the best outcome for the defendant, even when that person is at fault. In most cases, when a person is guilty, the important part of the case is the sentence.If appropriate punishment is dictated and every effort is made to help the defendant reform his behavior and reduce the possibility of him committing subsequent crimes, this is a victory even for a defendant who is found guilty. From the point of view of the law, everyone has the right to a fair trial and to legal representation. Lawyers defend the worst offenders to ensure that the legal system remains fair and impartial. This principle defends the integrity of the judicial system and protects individual rights. Procurators and prosecutors are always asked how they can defend people whose opinions or behavior they consider anathema and, in particular, people accused of atrocious crimes who, according to serious suspicion, are guilty.
It's something I've been asking myself for a long time. Isn't it possible that lawyers who find themselves in this situation suffer significantly from cognitive dissonance, the phenomenon by which a mismatch between our behavior and our attitudes leads to the need to resolve the resulting stress and create coherence, usually by changing our attitudes rather than our behavior? 1 Therefore, the person who is against gambling in all its forms, but who is bought a lottery ticket and turns out to be a winner, might think that you should never look a horse in the mouth. Couldn't it also be the case that, when lawyers are required to defend a clearly reprehensible character, cognitive dissonance unconsciously leads them to see the defendant from a better perspective — and even to do everything possible to try to prove his innocence — to square things with their own conscience? First, there is a difference between legal culpability and factual culpability. Second, attorneys have a legal responsibility to their clients that they must comply with. The job of a criminal defense attorney is to defend you against any charges that arise. When charges are brought, there only has to be one probable cause that you committed the crime.
At trial, the prosecutor's job is to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you committed the crime for which you are accused. Putting the burden of proof on the prosecution means that the purpose of the trial is to prove or not to prove that you are guilty of the crime you are accused of, without knowing if you are actually guilty or not. The reason most criminal defense attorneys won't ask you if you're truly guilty is because it's not relevant to the case. Besides, it's not your job to find out. Your job is to defend it and make a fair case.
As one lawyer said, your job is to maintain the honesty of the system. Depending on the way in which our legal system is structured, the courts (the judges and the juries) find the people responsible. Judges, not lawyers, hold the deck. Another reason that lawyers can defend people regardless of their guilt is that our society gives every citizen the right to be vigorously defended in a court of law.
The Constitution guarantees all citizens due process and the right to an attorney. Lawyers are required to offer this legal right to their clients. According to Canon 7 of the ABA Model Code of Responsibility, the defense attorney's duty to his client is to zealously represent the client within the limits of the law, due to their inclusion in a profession whose objective is (to help) members of the public to guarantee and protect available legal rights and benefits. While popular culture may detest the work that criminal attorneys do, their role is vital to maintaining justice and ensuring fair results for anyone facing legal charges.
Criminal attorneys simply do their duty to defend a citizen whose rights are protected by the U.S. Constitution and cannot be easily taken away. Have you ever wondered why lawyers defend even people they suspect are guilty of? It turns out that lawyers are just doing their job, argues César Arjona, associate professor of Legal Ethics at Esade, in the Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence. Martin Tanfield, an experienced lawyer (fictitious name; all the lawyers I spoke to wanted to remain anonymous) insists that defending “disgusting people who are very likely to be guilty is not a problem for a variety of reasons.
In general, moral obligations may require lawyers to prioritize the interests of their clients, even if this goes against some legal norms. Although I suspected that the husband was guilty, I firmly believed that he had been tried in a way that had not fully respected the legal process, and his duty as an attorney was to ensure that the process was strictly respected. Most of the time, the defense attorney is misunderstood to be helping the repeat offender. Criminal attorneys must represent clients regardless of whether they believe in their guilt or innocence.
This is due to the fact that a lawyer is not only obliged to defend his client, but he also has a moral obligation to enforce justice. An attorney must deliver a fair judgment, ensuring enthusiastic representation, challenging the prosecutor's case, defending the client's right to a fair trial, and determining that the client respects the law. If you look at it from a legal perspective, what these lawyers did was the same thing that lawyers who work for governments do when they draft international treaties. For this reason, the most important thing when looking for a criminal defense attorney is to find an attorney who takes your legal responsibility seriously and who will do everything possible to organize a comprehensive defense on your behalf.
If this action has terrible results for the environment or for social groups, the lawyer deserves moral guilt commensurate with his contribution. An important condition in this matter is that, even if a client admits his guilt to his lawyer, he may never really be sure that he is guilty. The criminal lawyer is obligated to protect the client's rights and ensure that everyone is fairly represented. California lawyer Stephen Feldman, who defended David Westerfield, convicted of murdering a seven-year-old girl, is a good example of this. As a lawyer, he drafts a binding contract in which states commit not only to ignoring the interests of the people who live there, but also to compensate companies if a court finds them responsible for the damages caused to the indigenous group.
