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The public defender had nothing to do with it. This was a lawyer his parents hired. A lawyer that was trying to save him from death row, and who saw that the cl

The public defender had nothing to do with it. This was a lawyer his parents hired. A lawyer that was trying to save him from death row, and who saw that the client's desired strategy was coocoo crazy pants. Does the attorney have more of an obligation to pursue the desired strategy, or to try and save the client's life?

logfromblammo 9y ago
If the public defenders had not somehow turned him against using them, he would have had at least one capital-qualified attorney from that office working his case in conjunction with the private lawyer. We're not privy to the details, but I think the likely scenario is that they were just telling him what they were going to do and ignoring his input. His input may have been cuckoo crazypants, but they still have a professional ethical obligation to take that into account. I.e. when the client says "no guilty plea", the lawyer has to discard all strategies that involve an admission of guilt. It's probably all because his preferred strategy was 99% likely to result in a guilty verdict, with capital punishment. As I have learned from movies and television, sometimes the defendant demands that all the obvious winnable strategies are completely off the table, and their attorney then has to be incredibly clever, to not only secure a not guilty verdict, but also uncover the real killer by forcing them to admit guilt on the witness stand. This guy's lawyer maybe watched too many of those shows, and thought admitting guilt was actually the clever courtroom twist that would lead to the happy ending? The attorney has an obligation to act in the interests of their client. When the client is issuing instructions to the attorney that are apparently contrary to their own interests, does the lawyer do what they say they want or do what the professional believes they need?

logfromblammo 9y ago

If the public defenders had not somehow turned him against using them, he would have had at least one capital-qualified attorney from that office working his case in conjunction with the private lawyer. We're not privy to the details, but I think the likely scenario is that they were just telling him what they were going to do and ignoring his input. His input may have been cuckoo crazypants, but they still have a professional ethical obligation to take that into account. I.e. when the client says "no guilty plea", the lawyer has to discard all strategies that involve an admission of guilt. It's probably all because his preferred strategy was 99% likely to result in a guilty verdict, with capital punishment. As I have learned from movies and television, sometimes the defendant demands that all the obvious winnable strategies are completely off the table, and their attorney then has to be incredibly clever, to not only secure a not guilty verdict, but also uncover the real killer by forcing them to admit guilt on the witness stand. This guy's lawyer maybe watched too many of those shows, and thought admitting guilt was actually the clever courtroom twist that would lead to the happy ending? The attorney has an obligation to act in the interests of their client. When the client is issuing instructions to the attorney that are apparently contrary to their own interests, does the lawyer do what they say they want or do what the professional believes they need?