What’s A Lawyer (To) Do?

As usual lately, reading this post on Scott Greenfield’s blog provokes me to a post of my own.  Sure, I could just leave a really long comment over on his blog, but lately I hardly get enough time to write, so aside from not wanting to leave an over-long comment, I wouldn’t get a post up on my blog if I didn’t “respond” here. This post is already going to pre-empt another I was working on regarding the (really high) number of police misconduct stories in the newspaper the other day. 

Also, this is kind of a follow-up to my last post.  Besides, some of what I’m responding to isn’t the post, as much as comments that followed it, including many which I read on Twitter.

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The Fundamental Principles of American Justice

Scott Greenfield’s blog, Simple Justice, is probably the only legal blog where I try never to miss a post.  If I fall behind, it bugs me, and when I get the chance, I’ll catch up by spending an hour or more reading every post I’ve missed.  One of these days, I’m going to continue digging back into the older posts, from before I knew about his blog, and read all those, too.  This is not to say that I agree with everything he says, but everything he says definitely makes me think.  And I agree with enough of it that I wish there was someone like him in my jurisdiction to mentor me.  (Scott’s been practicing a lot longer than I have.)

One of his posts from today — A Blog That Shouldn’t — gives me the chance to talk more about something that matters very much to me.  It concerns the question of defending guilty people.

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Second-Guessing Your Attorney

Someone — the name does not matter — used my contact form, providing his opinion of his case, including what he believed to be important facts, and indicated he was looking for someone to give him a “second opinion.”  From what I could tell, he wasn’t sure he trusted his current attorney and wanted another attorney to tell him whether his attorney was doing the right thing.

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If It Please the Court

This post isn’t about child custody cases.  It’s not about family law at all.  Oh, and it’s not about religion, either.

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Help Yourself to a Conviction

Seventeen-year-old Sammy Adams was running down the sidewalk alongside Floradora Avenue, no doubt a little faster than he should.  He was late for work.  Again.  Today was inventory day and he knew what the boss would do if he didn’t get there on time.

Doris Daudy, a woman of approximately 38 years old, was walking north on Maroa toward her home just north of the Tower District.  Her purse was slung over one shoulder, her arms wrapped around grocery bags.  She never minded the walk; it was just a few blocks.  And although there was an occasional purse-snatching in the area, she’d walked this route for years without problems and felt perfectly safe.

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