I find this persons attitude disgusting. They should not be a public defender.
Also, I wonder if the author really does the best they can. We only have their word for it, and... well, from what I can read on the internet, the criminal justice system in the USA isn't that great, so to speak.
Regarding the US justice system, I am thankful every time I hear about it that I am not subject to it.
These people lie because they know they did it but are trying to avoid the consequences since they got caught, their first instinct is to convince anyone who will talk to them, and after the first few times where that doesn't work out, they finally get the lesson to only talk to their lawyer. But, they carried forward the same behavior.
Now instead of trying to convince the people before, they're now trying to convince the lawyer that they weren't even there, they were asleep even. But, they live with other people who don't share their alibi, they made a call using their phone just 15 minutes before the crime took place, or cite the classic SODDI when that all fails, like Marcel and Kyle.
Sometimes people are irrational, forgetful, and however unfathomably unlikely: stupid. Sometimes people cite "experience" to lead their path through life, but really they mean "familiarity" with the situation, they really haven't learned anything.
I'll use the authors own thoughts here to affirm:
> No, the lying doesn't come from a lack of trust but rather a manipulation attempt. Their overriding goal is to get off the charges no matter what it takes, so they're willing to flip through and latch onto whatever narrative helps them get there. They basically want me to be a ventriloquist and use me to launder their talking points because it's more believable coming from me. Of course as I pointed out, they don't really think the plan all the way through.
The system is not built on forgiveness. It will punish you fully regardless the severity of your actual crime.
The fact that the author has no sympathy nor understanding of this, leads me to believe that they're not doing the job for the right reasons.
This is not a fact, this is you twisting the content of this post into a very badly formed representation of the author.
> But their client has to lie, even if they're not fully guilty of the crime
Client does not need to confess to their lawyer, they do however need to provide the lawyer with enough information, most importantly with evidence or a pathway to it, that may lead to an innocent or non-liable verdict. Client can misunderstand this position all they want, does not matter.
While he might not like it because it makes his job difficult, he should nonetheless understand it and at least pretend to sympathize on some level.
Hard disagree. The clients described here, and in their other piece, are clearly the product of disadvantaged backgrounds. If these individuals were capable of having these kind of insights by themselves, they would simply not be sitting in front of a lawyer. It is precisely the mocking that I am pointing as an issue, because the mocking shows an absence of empathy. A good, or even competent, public defender needs to understand the mindset of their client. Clients behave in ways that appear to us, as lawyers or readers of HN, to be bizarrely self-destructive.
And that mocking disrespect leads to this absolute blinder of a claim:
>His attitude is a bit unprofessional, but he appears to be putting in an honest attempt at securing the best outcome for his clients.
>FTA: Every case I get requires me to deploy a microscope and retrace the cops’ steps to see if they fucked up somehow (spoiler: they haven’t).
Wow. Cops fuck up all the time. Sometimes deliberately. Sometimes in ways that kill people. Sometimes, extremely rarely, there are attempts to hold them accountable for that. But day-in, day-out, cops try to do their job, and that job is "Put somebody behind bars". If you believe that the police's job is to "put the guilty party behind bars" then you haven't worked in the criminal justice system, or known someone who has.
It takes a committed public defender to go over the evidence and review it. Four members of the police will happily take the stand and describe what they have agreed amongst themselves is what happened, only to have video evidence that a public defender took the time to look at, absolutely refute what they said. Cops routinely perjure themselves. And is any action taken against them? Surely blatant perjury is grounds for some kind of disciplinary action? Disqualification and banning from ever being police again, even? Nope. Routine, day-in, day-out behavior by the police.
Are there defendants who absolutely did the crime? Certainly. Do they try to get out of it in the stupidest ways? Absolutely. Do they do it in ways that guarantee themselves jail time, when a remorseful attitude would get them probation? All the time. And is it the job of the public defender, themselves underpaid, to deal with this behavior and yet achieve the best outcome? Yes, that is literally the job. All public defenders are exasperated by many of their clients. Mocking them online crosses the line.
>FTA (comments by author): No, the lying doesn't come from a lack of trust but rather a manipulation attempt.
The claim here is that these are evil, manipulative people, and therefore it is ok to mock them and they get what they deserve. And certainly, many of them are psychopaths and narcissist, just like the ones that work at my company, CEOs around the world, surgeons, etc. But in fact many of them are just broken people. People who have been abused by actual psychopaths, or indeed just other broken people. People who don't experience a just world, with laws that are followed; People who essentially live in a lawless world, where rules of protection don't apply to them; where even people in uniform who visibly represent "lawful society" violate these laws with impunity.
Some of those behind bars need to stay there forever. The majority need help. Of course the help they need is a supportive environment, education and opportunities, which is tremendously unlikely. You could (and many rich white men do) argue it's just better for the rest of us to just incarcerate them than it is to have them come back out into the same broken society and reoffend. It's easy to believe that all immigrants are murderers, all muslims are terrorists, as demonstrably many people do, when told so by rich white men.
And in such a society, it's easy to read an article such as this, and laugh at the stupidity of poor people. Just be aware that's what you're doing.
Then again, those are private lawyers and not cheap public defenders. You get what you pay for, I guess.