I went to school with a girl who’s father was an attorney. He was court appointed to represent two men who raped and murdered a teenage girl working in a local ice cream parlour.
He gave interviews with newspapers and declared his clients innocent when the rest of us knew they were guilty. The attorney’s house was burned down by an arsonist who was apparently an extremist who felt that he shouldn’t represent guilty men.
Like it or not, ALL Americans have an equal right to representation. Sounds to me like there are a few constitutional issues you would like to see quietly removed from the table.
That doesn't change the human fact that if a lawyer takes on a controversial case and defends it vigorously, his own reputation is affected by it to one degree or another. You seem to believe that my view of taking controversial clients is black-and-white; whereas I think that it is a slippery slope and a matter of degree.
But while we're on the subject: Like many Americans, I am offended by the tactics used by today's trial lawyers of impugning the witnesses and interrogating victims as if they are perpetrators when the client they are defending is most obviously a lowlife to anyone with a shred of integrity. I am offended when a lawyer makes outraged, bald statements of the accused's innocence to the press and make lurid accusations against the victim/accusers that drag them through the mud, when their client's innocence is not yet proven. It is my hope that DNA evidence will not only help convict the truly guilty, but also help protect the innocent from such disgusting tactics.
I think many Americans have learned the hard way to distrust lawyers and their aggressive, holier-than-thou, above-the-law shenanigans. I have personally known attorneys and district attorneys who casually broke the law in their personal lives, yet gleefully prosecuted citizens with a dramatic self-righteousness rarely seen outside of Hollywood.
I think no one is above the law, and defending a client is no excuse for trampling the truth just to score a courtroom victory.