Well this is certainly true to a great extent. I am starting law school next month and there is NO way I could be a defense attorney for that very reason. I could defend someone I absolutely knew was getting the shaft, but I could not make it a career choice. Making sure a defendant gets a fair trial and presenting an unfair case to a jury are two different things imo and I will struggle with that in classes I'M SURE! It appears on both sides many times that winning is more important that what is true and what is right.
Anyway - sure let the rock throwing begin. This is why I believe the court of public opinion is very important. It brings a bit of common sense in (sometimes, depending on how fair the reporting has been) and when someone is in the like "duh, guilty" catagory - it ties the hands of the defense to spin and they get a sense that a jury "ain't gonna buy it". So Jose better grow thicker skin and defense attorneys better get used to looking like scum.
In forums such as these, the evidence discussed is 10 times of that presented on TV shows which brings a greater sense of what the trial will be like. It's also interesting what is allowed to be admitted and what is not. Can't wait to see what happens here.
You need to remember, the job of a defense attny is to make sure the system actually tries the guilty. It use to be that folks were not even given a chance at a trail. People would get strung up by the locals on a rampage. Only to find out later, when tempers cooled and the facts were checked, that the person was innocent.
Nothing wrong with being a defense attny. The issue comes to how the person plays the game.