for muses_at_large

[court_trained]

Have you ever broken the law for your own benefit or that of a friend?

The term's rather unclear. How "broken" are we talking? I'm an attorney, and as such obeying the law, upholding it, and seeing it is served is one of the sacred duties of my calling. However, the other is serving my clients' needs, and the two do not always coincide. For instance, you know a man is guilty of a crime. You can't put him on the stand to testify, because you know he's going to lie, and your part in putting him there would be suborning perjury. But he's your client. He has a 5th Amendment right to testify in his own defense. He does not, however, have a right to lie. You, however, cannot betray his confidence and tell the court he's lying. It's already to the defense portion of your case, so you can't ethically withdraw. There are ways you can get around this. Put him on the stand and ask him to "tell us your side of the events" or some such nonsense. Basically, call for a narrative, which will then get you an objection on proper form of question grounds. But you can't question him, or you will be breaking the law. If you question him thusly, however, the court will sustain the objection, and you will have sent a red flag that says that your client is lying, which means that non-verbally you have betrayed his confidentiality.

So a successful defense lawyer never asks his client if he did it. You don't want to know. You make sure you never know, no matter what. You can suspect your heart out. You can look at the evidence and know you'd convict beyond reasonable doubt. But it's your duty to defend and to do it to the best of your knowledge, you can't know the truth if he's guilty.

You let him lie to you. You let him lie to the court.

And isn't that all a rather sophistic way of perpetuating a fraud on the court?

But the system crumbles if you do not, as bound as we are by ethics and laws and rules.

Have you violated a law by doing so? Or the spirit of it? You've upheld your ethical duties. You can't be prosecuted. But what about your moral ones? Where does your duty as a human being lie when you have a man charged with heinous crimes in front of you and you defend him without ever asking if he did it?

Where does your duty lie when he hands you incriminating evidence and you are forced to turn it over to the polie without ever saying where it was found or how it came into your possession?

And then, of course, doesn't everyone speed nowadays? There's law-breaking for you, running rampant down the streets of every country.

Comments

[oldestbeloved.livejournal.com]

Does this question presume only the American laws, then?

[deadlyseed.livejournal.com]

No; she meant to leave enough ambiguity for varying definitions of 'law'.

[court-trained.livejournal.com]

It was presumed by the rules of the community that we could answer in the way the question spoke to us.

ooc: dear. lord. this just came through. From October. But Eric felt the need to respond.