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> I’ve been asked by my family members, my friends and my hairdresser why I represent criminals. That's the most sad part of this article to me. Many people ha

by axxl 11y ago

> I’ve been asked by my family members, my friends and my hairdresser why I represent criminals. That's the most sad part of this article to me. Many people have lost innocent-until-proven-guilty in their minds. Tina has a good response in the article: > The answer is that I, and other public defenders, don’t represent criminals. We represent poor people who are facing criminal charges — charges on which they are presumed innocent until proven guilty in court. We represent members of our communities who have a right to real and meaningful legal representation, even if they are poor.

sanderjd 11y ago
Coming from a family of lawyers, I first realized that the belief in everyone's right to representation is not universal when many people I knew reacted vitriolically to lawyers representing inmates at Guantanamo. I really like the answer you quoted from the article, but it still relies on appealing to sympathy for the people being represented. But even those who deserve no sympathy deserve representation!
- fsloth 11y ago
  "many people I knew reacted vitriolically to lawyers representing inmates at Guantanamo" This attitude that "criminals deserve no justice" that is pervasive nearly everywhere amazes me. I cannot understand why people really think any system is so foolproof as to charge only those guilty.
  - asuffield 11y ago
    > I cannot understand why people really think any system is so foolproof as to charge only those guilty. A cynical observer might make a connection between the people who think that and the inability of the system to charge only those guilty.
  - throwawayaway 11y ago
    It's relatively easy to get people on your side of that debate. Tell them about how often people who have been convicted to face the death penalty are later exonerated.
    - nitrogen 11y ago
      People will still say they must have done something wrong to end up there in the first place.
      - newjersey 11y ago
        The mom who apparently told her son that she would not bail him out also proudly told the reporter she told her son to not drop the soap in prison. A lot of people praised her for what she said. I am just sad that people think criminals deserve sexual assault as part and parcel of being in prison. The Jared from Subway who was convicted of sexual offenses against children faced similar public decries. People laugh at the idea of sexual assault and rape in prison. People here in the US laugh at the idea of sexual assault and rape in prison. When I approach them and tell them to reconsider what they're saying, they call me an accessory to sexual crime against children. I don't get it. An old saying says judge a society bynhownit treatsnits worst-off people. When I think about what I've had to hear from otherwise sane, well-educated, and well-travelled people makes me wonder if there's any hope for humanity at all.
        mratzloff 11y ago
        Yes, I've been saying this for years. It's astonishing how rare it is to hear someone express the same viewpoint. It disgusts me when people laugh about the idea of (specifically male) rape in prison, as if it is justice. But for whatever reason people have a very different reaction to rape when the victim is male instead of female. I ask them two questions to get them to reconsider their position: 1. Do prisoners deserve to be raped as a form of punishment? 2. So you believe that women should be raped as punishment? I believe that a just and fair society should never allow sexual assault to be used as a punishment. This is true whether someone in prison is guilty or innocent.
      - Sharlin 11y ago
        This is called the just-world hypothesis - the idea that people "get what they deserve". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis
- jeffmould 11y ago
  Completely agree with you. I think a lot of this stems from the media and reporting of crimes in general. News organizations create this want in society to find a suspect, any suspect, guilty or not. To top it off, at least in the US, we live in a society now where we overreact to implementing laws. Zero-tolerance and three-strike laws have created this army of unsympathetic, unforgiving, people who could care less about guilt or innocence. I am a strong believer in second chances, and giving people the benefit of the doubt (or innocent until proven guilty). Sadly though, many offenders never get a second chance simply because society places a scarlet letter on their chest for life.
- neelm 11y ago
  Agreed. Society is at a point in time where many forget the reasoning for principles of the judicial system. The presumption of innocence in particular is critically important and written into most modern democracies constitution. The alternative of being presumed guilty can lead to a lot more corruption and injustice.
geofft 11y ago
There's a subtler point: even if they are criminals, it's still valid to represent criminals to make sure that justice is served. You want criminals punished for the crimes they did commit, not the ones they didn't. You want sentencing to be fair, not vindictive. You want conspirators and other partners to be identified and to be punished too; you don't want the one unrepresented person to be coerced by everyone else's lawyers into taking all the blame. You want loopholes, as long as they exist, to be as available to the poor as to the rich. I think I'm actually more worried about the loss of this than the loss of innocence-until-proven-guilty. That's the sort of stuff that gets people thinking, if you don't want to be extrajudicially killed on the streets, don't sell untaxed goods if you have asthma.
- pdonis 11y ago
  There's also a not-quite-subtler point: many of the "crimes" in question are nonviolent and do no harm to anyone other than the supposed "criminal". The article specifically mentions "possession of a single joint" as something that can lead to life imprisonment if you do it three times. What kind of sense does that make?
  - maratd 11y ago
    > What kind of sense does that make? Makes perfect sense when you have self-interested parties (law enforcement, for-profit prisons, prosecutors, etc.) who benefit from the volume. We made it profitable to criminalize people.
    - wyager 11y ago
      Drugs have historically been illegal because the population had a moral objection to them, not because of some shady profiteering cabal. People have been criminalizing drug use (with alcohol being the most common target) for a very long time. Non-violent crimes have been a concept long before someone stood to make money off them. (Of course, that doesn't imply that they make sense.)
      - 11y ago
PopeOfNope 11y ago
Many people have lost innocent-until-proven-guilty in their minds. You have to ask yourself why people have lost the innocent-until-proven-guilty concept. We still teach it in school, so it's not lack of exposure. Is it the media? Since 9/11, the number of police procedurals on TV have skyrocketed. Social Media? Journalism? Personally, I'd be very interested to see how well these concepts are distributed among class, race and gender lines.
- RexRollman 11y ago
  From what I have observed and read, people have always been quick to judge and assume guilt on the accused. I really don't think it is a modern invention.
- icebraining 11y ago
  From before 9/11: In 1993 the Gallup poll found that 64% of the public agreed with the following: "Regardless of what the law says, a defendant in a criminal trial should be required to prove his or her innocence." In the same poll, 70% of the respondents agreed that our judicial system makes it too hard to convict people accused of crimes.
- the_ancient 11y ago
  >You have to ask yourself why people have lost the innocent-until-proven-guilty concept. We still teach it in school, so it's not lack of exposure I would argue they dont actually. While they may say the words they ring hollow in the face of other lessons in schools, lesson around the hero worship of police, and government in general Students are at the same time told about "innocent until proven guilty" while at the same time filled with all kinds of propaganda about how wonderful and infallible the government is.
jessaustin 11y ago
The answer is that I, and other public defenders, don’t represent criminals. We represent poor people who are facing criminal charges... If the public actually paid attention to what goes on in the judicial system, they wouldn't ask what kind of person does criminal defense. Instead, they would ask what kind of person becomes a prosecutor.
eevilspock 11y ago
Public defenders are the only thing working against the Matthew Effect[1] when it comes to justice. But, when wealthy corporations or individuals can spend unlimited sums on prosocution or defense, justice is still usually determined by wealth. If you think the tactics of patent trolls are bad... [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_effect
tete 11y ago
> Many people have lost innocent-until-proven-guilty in their minds. It's worse. Sometimes I feel like "innocent-until-proven-guilty" is considered a flaw in the system that should be eradicated to make it easier to catch/punish criminals.

by axxl 11y ago

sanderjd 11y ago

Coming from a family of lawyers, I first realized that the belief in everyone's right to representation is not universal when many people I knew reacted vitriolically to lawyers representing inmates at Guantanamo. I really like the answer you quoted from the article, but it still relies on appealing to sympathy for the people being represented. But even those who deserve no sympathy deserve representation!

fsloth 11y ago
"many people I knew reacted vitriolically to lawyers representing inmates at Guantanamo" This attitude that "criminals deserve no justice" that is pervasive nearly everywhere amazes me. I cannot understand why people really think any system is so foolproof as to charge only those guilty.
- asuffield 11y ago
  > I cannot understand why people really think any system is so foolproof as to charge only those guilty. A cynical observer might make a connection between the people who think that and the inability of the system to charge only those guilty.
- throwawayaway 11y ago
  It's relatively easy to get people on your side of that debate. Tell them about how often people who have been convicted to face the death penalty are later exonerated.
  - nitrogen 11y ago
    People will still say they must have done something wrong to end up there in the first place.
    - newjersey 11y ago
      The mom who apparently told her son that she would not bail him out also proudly told the reporter she told her son to not drop the soap in prison. A lot of people praised her for what she said. I am just sad that people think criminals deserve sexual assault as part and parcel of being in prison. The Jared from Subway who was convicted of sexual offenses against children faced similar public decries. People laugh at the idea of sexual assault and rape in prison. People here in the US laugh at the idea of sexual assault and rape in prison. When I approach them and tell them to reconsider what they're saying, they call me an accessory to sexual crime against children. I don't get it. An old saying says judge a society bynhownit treatsnits worst-off people. When I think about what I've had to hear from otherwise sane, well-educated, and well-travelled people makes me wonder if there's any hope for humanity at all.
      - mratzloff 11y ago
        Yes, I've been saying this for years. It's astonishing how rare it is to hear someone express the same viewpoint. It disgusts me when people laugh about the idea of (specifically male) rape in prison, as if it is justice. But for whatever reason people have a very different reaction to rape when the victim is male instead of female. I ask them two questions to get them to reconsider their position: 1. Do prisoners deserve to be raped as a form of punishment? 2. So you believe that women should be raped as punishment? I believe that a just and fair society should never allow sexual assault to be used as a punishment. This is true whether someone in prison is guilty or innocent.
    - Sharlin 11y ago
      This is called the just-world hypothesis - the idea that people "get what they deserve". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis
jeffmould 11y ago
Completely agree with you. I think a lot of this stems from the media and reporting of crimes in general. News organizations create this want in society to find a suspect, any suspect, guilty or not. To top it off, at least in the US, we live in a society now where we overreact to implementing laws. Zero-tolerance and three-strike laws have created this army of unsympathetic, unforgiving, people who could care less about guilt or innocence. I am a strong believer in second chances, and giving people the benefit of the doubt (or innocent until proven guilty). Sadly though, many offenders never get a second chance simply because society places a scarlet letter on their chest for life.
neelm 11y ago
Agreed. Society is at a point in time where many forget the reasoning for principles of the judicial system. The presumption of innocence in particular is critically important and written into most modern democracies constitution. The alternative of being presumed guilty can lead to a lot more corruption and injustice.

geofft 11y ago

There's a subtler point: even if they are criminals, it's still valid to represent criminals to make sure that justice is served. You want criminals punished for the crimes they did commit, not the ones they didn't. You want sentencing to be fair, not vindictive. You want conspirators and other partners to be identified and to be punished too; you don't want the one unrepresented person to be coerced by everyone else's lawyers into taking all the blame. You want loopholes, as long as they exist, to be as available to the poor as to the rich. I think I'm actually more worried about the loss of this than the loss of innocence-until-proven-guilty. That's the sort of stuff that gets people thinking, if you don't want to be extrajudicially killed on the streets, don't sell untaxed goods if you have asthma.

pdonis 11y ago
There's also a not-quite-subtler point: many of the "crimes" in question are nonviolent and do no harm to anyone other than the supposed "criminal". The article specifically mentions "possession of a single joint" as something that can lead to life imprisonment if you do it three times. What kind of sense does that make?
- maratd 11y ago
  > What kind of sense does that make? Makes perfect sense when you have self-interested parties (law enforcement, for-profit prisons, prosecutors, etc.) who benefit from the volume. We made it profitable to criminalize people.
  - wyager 11y ago
    Drugs have historically been illegal because the population had a moral objection to them, not because of some shady profiteering cabal. People have been criminalizing drug use (with alcohol being the most common target) for a very long time. Non-violent crimes have been a concept long before someone stood to make money off them. (Of course, that doesn't imply that they make sense.)
    - 11y ago

PopeOfNope 11y ago

Many people have lost innocent-until-proven-guilty in their minds. You have to ask yourself why people have lost the innocent-until-proven-guilty concept. We still teach it in school, so it's not lack of exposure. Is it the media? Since 9/11, the number of police procedurals on TV have skyrocketed. Social Media? Journalism? Personally, I'd be very interested to see how well these concepts are distributed among class, race and gender lines.

RexRollman 11y ago
From what I have observed and read, people have always been quick to judge and assume guilt on the accused. I really don't think it is a modern invention.
icebraining 11y ago
From before 9/11: In 1993 the Gallup poll found that 64% of the public agreed with the following: "Regardless of what the law says, a defendant in a criminal trial should be required to prove his or her innocence." In the same poll, 70% of the respondents agreed that our judicial system makes it too hard to convict people accused of crimes.
the_ancient 11y ago
>You have to ask yourself why people have lost the innocent-until-proven-guilty concept. We still teach it in school, so it's not lack of exposure I would argue they dont actually. While they may say the words they ring hollow in the face of other lessons in schools, lesson around the hero worship of police, and government in general Students are at the same time told about "innocent until proven guilty" while at the same time filled with all kinds of propaganda about how wonderful and infallible the government is.

jessaustin 11y ago

The answer is that I, and other public defenders, don’t represent criminals. We represent poor people who are facing criminal charges... If the public actually paid attention to what goes on in the judicial system, they wouldn't ask what kind of person does criminal defense. Instead, they would ask what kind of person becomes a prosecutor.

eevilspock 11y ago

Public defenders are the only thing working against the Matthew Effect[1] when it comes to justice. But, when wealthy corporations or individuals can spend unlimited sums on prosocution or defense, justice is still usually determined by wealth. If you think the tactics of patent trolls are bad... [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_effect

tete 11y ago

> Many people have lost innocent-until-proven-guilty in their minds. It's worse. Sometimes I feel like "innocent-until-proven-guilty" is considered a flaw in the system that should be eradicated to make it easier to catch/punish criminals.