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0 pointscdogl4y ago0 comments

I suspect that people don't fall into such neat categories. You could pose a similar question re: lawyers whose bread and butter is protecting and representing people associated with organised crime (the kind of individuals represented by Maury from The Wire or Neil Mink from The Sopranos). Are they lawyers who developed a slippery version of ethics & morality, or people with loose ethical standards who entered law?

I'd bet good money that the truth is usually quite banal: these individuals make a series of small and highly contingent decisions over time that gradually push them in the direction of criminality or culpability, reinforced over time by social & financial reward for doing so.

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liquidify4y ago

What? Representing criminals is not unethical or 'immoral'. Period. Protecting criminals legally is not unethical unless you are knowingly doing something illegal yourself.

I imagine that most layers are just doing their job and getting paid for it. Bringing morality into that equation makes no sense in a legal system that has little to nothing to do with morality.

fshbbdssbbgdd4y ago

Representing criminals is fine, but aiding them in committing future crimes isn’t. If you do that, you’re just part of a criminal conspiracy, and being a lawyer doesn’t give you an exception from moral culpability.

xwolfi4y ago

Doing their taxes okay, but representing them in court with the goal to free them is the purpose of the justice system...

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scintill764y ago

I haven't seen all of The Wire, but as to the character cited as an example, Wikipedia says, "[Maury] is corrupt and unscrupulous, willing to aid his clients in furtherance of their criminal activity." So he crosses your line, and I think that's what the GP post meant.

spoonjim4y ago

You don’t get to declare what is unethical by adding the sentence “Period.” after your claim. Ethics is a matter of opinion; I believe that knowingly aiding violent criminals is wrong; if you feel otherwise, that’s just like, your, opinion, man.

MakersF4y ago

They aren't criminal until the court system declares them criminal. The lawyer is defending them before they are declared criminals. That is what "presumption of innocence" means. Everyone has the right to be represented in court, even people that later on will be convicted. Otherwise we can just go back to use pitchforks and similar (and actually it's happening on social media, and it's not looking good)

WalterBright4y ago

Everyone is entitled (in the US) to due process and a lawyer to defend them. There is nothing unethical or immoral about it. It's a fundamental right.

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9wzYQbTYsAIc4y ago

Rhetorically, yes he/she/they do get to do that.

Ethics is a matter of philosophy, which has a bit more going for it than just being composed of raw, uneducated opinion.

worik4y ago

Lawyers have a code of ethics. Written down and codified. Not a matter of opinion.

You are thinking of morals. That is a matter of opinion

michaelmrose4y ago

Your life as a human being can't have little to do with morality unless you are a sociopath. On the one hand we need someone to provide all accused with adequate representation to ensure we don't wrongly convict innocent men however at the mob boss level we are virtually always talking about trying to protect horrible people everyone knows are guilty from punishment.

A system that didn't need to hold a trial or give the mob boss a lawyer would be irredeemably immoral but one in which they go free is a shittier world. I don't envy anyone trying to remain moral while walking that line. I don't see how anyone who specialized in such clients could live with themselves.

devilbunny4y ago

Or, as the line from Breaking Bad went - you don't need a criminal lawyer. You need a criminal lawyer.

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