That makes me mad that we have to so carefully safeguard his rights when he so blatantly disregarded his victims'. But I know I know, at this point, he is only accused, not yet convicted, I know, so has to be this way because we live in a civilized society, and sometimes innocent people are wrongly accused, so it has to be this way. Yes, I know all that, but there's a huge problem with that, that I always struggle with in many cases, every time we hear a dedicated defense team earnestly arguing for their client's rights, trying to suppress evidence, suggesting alternative perpetrators, spinning creative theories, constructing implausible alibis, deflecting, distracting, and derailing in every way they can. Just doing their job, we say. The defendant is lucky to have a lawyer working so hard for them. We say if I'm ever criminally accused, I hope to have such a dedicated lawyer.
But the problem with that is, that the defense attorney works just as hard for their guilty clients as they do for their innocent ones. That's their job. And they supposedly don't know, or even want to know, whether they're guilty or innocent. So they're (ideally) working equally hard for every client.
But we know some of these clients are, in fact, guilty. We may not know which ones, but in reality, some (if not most) defendants are guilty. So while the defense attorney is working so hard to protect his client, who is protecting the innocent citizens of that community? Because if the defense attorney is successful in his efforts, a guilty person is sometimes let loose back into the community. And if it was a violent crime of which they managed to get him acquitted, then a potentially violent, dangerous person is returned to the world.
That's why it's hard for me to not feel contempt for some defense attorneys in some cases. Because I know that the harder they work and the more successes they have in their efforts in some cases, the more likely it is that they're helping put a violent criminal back on the streets where they are very likely to victimize another innocent person. I don't see how they can justify that in their minds, to know that they could be responsible for that. But I also don't see how there's any way around it.
