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Comment by FireBeyond | Hacker News Reader

Apropos of anything else, the 'lawyer' example is a bad one, and contrived for the purpose of example.

If an attorney "knows" that their client is guilty, they are duty-bound as officers of the court to make that knowledge known.

Obviously that doesn't happen as much as it should...

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The general rule in Common Law (English speaking) legal systems is that if the lawyer knows (as opposed to suspects) that their client is guilty, they cannot let their client plead not guilty. They can still defend the client by pleading for a lesser sentence etc, or they can cease acting for the client. They don't have any obligation to tell the court, just an obligation not to lie to the court. Of course each jurisdiction will have its own rules about this.

Except you don't enter a plea for an action, you enter a plea for a criminal charge. A murderer can confess a crime to his lawyer (under privilege), and still honestly plead not-guilty to first-degree murder (for example, it could be considered manslaughter).

Your statement is factually incorrect, at least in the US court system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attorney%E2%80%93client_privil...

I consider myself educated! I believe it is different in the UK and Australian systems, however.

But how do you police it, after all the only thing revealing such lack would be privileged...

IANAL, but I don't think they are allowed to make it known if they learned it as part of an attorney-client privileged conversation.

Yeah, it's definitely a catch 22. I do know that you are not allowed to present evidence that you know to be false, such as your client bringing you an alibi witness that is in direct contradiction to your other evidence.

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