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Do you believe everyone deserves proper legal representation?
I'm referring to legal representation as it's used in the adversarial justice system - e.g. an advocate for the defense in a criminal case.




Lol, so calm, so reasonable. Telling people they have no soul is the highest form of discourse.
If you're advocating for child rapists to go free, then yes, you have no soul.
And I am calm.
And your sarcasm and belittling is breaking the rules of this community. I'll give you one more chance to be civil, then it's a 30- day ban if you continue to be a dick. Got it?
The worst part is when they ban you from their community because you disagree with them.
I would never ban you for disagreement. I would ban you for being a dick.
Obviously. It just depends on what your definition of "proper" is, just like some can argue over what the definition of "is" is.
In the case of say, a man who rapes a child... If his attorney knows that the man is guilty, and the man admits his guilt and pleads guilty, the attorney should NOT fight to get the man the lightest possible sentence, in my opinion.
This is what Hillary Clinton did, and she laughed about how the case made her "lose faith in polygraphs forever" because her client actually passed the polygraph.
She knew he was guilty, yet she defended him and her work led to him getting out of prison on "time served" instead of being put away for life like all child rapists should be, in my opinion.
And I also hold the prosecutor and the judge accountable as well, for not having the common decency to put an admitted child rapist behind bars for life.
I'm sorry (and this is NOT something I should be apologizing for), but I believe that child rape is one of the most heinous crimes for anyone to ever perpetrate on anyone. I feel like I'm alone in that thought recently, merely because everyone is out to defend everything, and I mean EVERYTHING Hillary Clinton has ever done, including defending a child rapist.
That's a strong appeal to emotion, but it's a fundamental misunderstanding of how the justice system works. The repercussions of what you want extend far beyond this isolated case.
If we forbid some people from getting a fair trial (yes, including the part about sentencing) but not others, then the adversarial justice system simply will not work. It would be ripe for misuse through discrimination, prejudice, and all sorts of manipulation. I'm sure there are cases where attorneys have thought a client was guilty when they weren't, and cases where attorneys have pushed innocent clients into guilty pleas for lighter sentences, and cases where false accusations of heinous crimes have been fuelled by racism or classism or whatever form of oppression. Additionally, one of the major roles of a defense lawyer is to ensure their client gets a fair sentence: whether that's rehabilitation, community service, or a shorter time in prison. Sometimes this is abused - for example, all the wealthy people who can basically commit whatever crimes they want because they can get a good lawyer. But it's still necessary, because without it, anyone could be thrown in jail for anything.
We cannot arbitrarily decide that some people have this right to an attorney who fully represents their interests in the eyes of the law, while others can be denied it because they're 'just that evil'. Even if you want to make an exception for some given cases, how do we decide who is "bad" enough not to get a fair trial and who isn't? How do we decide which crimes are bad enough that the people accused don't even get a chance at justice? We'd need a trial for the trial. Or we might as well not bother with trials at all, and just round up everyone who is 'totally obviously guilty' and shove them in jail.
I completely understand why this case and this crime in particular has given you such a strong reaction, and I agree that the outcome of the trial was wrong, but you're blaming the wrong people and finding the wrong 'solutions'.
If there's something wrong with how this trial was carried out, then we should change the law, not get rid of the lawyer. Maybe have harsher minimum sentences for that sort of crime, regardless of the defendant's plea. Maybe stop admitting polygraphs as evidence. Whatever. That kind of reform is how the current legal system works, and I personally think that's a much better route for improvement than overhauling (or undermining, tbh) the principles of the entire justice system only to go back to some unreasoned, emotion-driven, medieval mess.
There's the problem with your assumption. "Fair" is a subjective term.
Again, "fair" is subjective. My subjective assessment is that there should be no "minimum" sentence for child rapists. It should be a life sentence. Period.
Or when a new/green lawyer wants to score points with the bar, so they work nights trying to get a child rapist freed. Sorry if that sounds snarky but that's exactly what happened in Hillary's case. You've read the snopes article.
Slippery slope.
I'm not suggesting that it should be arbitrary.
Let's start with child rapists and evaluate from there, shall we? I would also put child murderers on that list, as well as regular old rapists and child/spousal abusers. There are a lot of crimes that I feel should have harsher sentences and different protocols than we currently have.
Treating every crime the same is not justice, in my view.
And yes, I know that mandatory minimum sentences have been abused (leading to mass incarceration), but that's because they WERE applied arbitrarily or in a discriminatory fashion. For instance, the mandatory minimum sentence for someone doing crack (a poor man's drug) is/was harsher than the mandatory minimum sentence for someone doing powdered cocaine (a rich man's drug)
That's why we need checks and balances in sentencing. I don't think sentences should be left up to the legislators, honestly.
I think Direct Democracy would be much better these days than what we currently have. Yes, there are risks, but I actually have faith in the goodness of people in general. Good tends to win out, generally. Especially after what society has been through over the past 100 years. We've learned our lesson, for the most part. Yes, there are certain flare-ups here and there (Trumpism, etc.) but overall, "the arc of history bends towards justice" despite the fact that only old people vote. Hey, maybe if people had a more direct role in government they would have a bit more faith in it and be more apt to participate? What an idea!
This is assuming too much. What I'm talking about primarily is when the defendant pleads guilty, and the prosecution still advocates for the most lenient possible sentence, as Hillary did for that child rapist.
But generally, we should leave it up to the public to decide.
C'mon, let's be reasonable here.
I'm not suggesting we get rid of lawyers.
We should change the law so that soulless lawyers aren't given the opportunity to set child rapists free. Lawyers should not be allowed, for certain crimes, to argue for the minimum possible sentence. But even before we go there, ultimately, for certain crimes, there should be no "minimum" sentence. There should be only one sentence: Life in prison. (In my opinion)
And yes, we should change the laws to have harsher minimum sentences for certain crimes. There has been a lot of work done in that regard, and yes, I admit that it can and will be abused. But that's why there needs to be more checks/balances than just a single judge and a single lawyer, or the legislature, which is notoriously corrupt.
I don't know what the final solution is. But the point I'm making is that anyone who would defend a child rapist who they know is guilty, and work to set them free is beyond evil in my mind. And it makes it that much worse that she was doing it to score points with the Bar Association. That she would use this as a way to get ahead is just unconscionable.
That's not what I'm suggesting at all.
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