tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5945843206427351559.post37287346203127118..comments2024-01-25T14:51:13.377-05:00Comments on Gamso - For the Defense: Who We Are and What We Do - Once More into the Breach, Dear FriendsJeff Gamsohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09869425697771419546noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5945843206427351559.post-12820693131210313422011-08-14T15:11:36.950-04:002011-08-14T15:11:36.950-04:00I don't get emotional. It is just a business; ...I don't get emotional. It is just a business; Nothing more.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5945843206427351559.post-35547440522277021612011-08-04T08:25:36.984-04:002011-08-04T08:25:36.984-04:00There are honest and honorable prosecutors and jud...There are honest and honorable prosecutors and judges. There are dishonest and dishonorable criminal defense lawyers. And doctors and accountants and auto mechanics and plumbers and garbagemen and garbagewomen. What else is new?<br /><br />The government is typically in a position to hurt more people in more ways and for more time than the worst of my clients.<br /><br />I write about what interests me.<br /><br />If you think I'm intellectually lazy or dishonest, so be it. At least I'm not sniping from behind a shield of anonymity.Jeff Gamsohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09869425697771419546noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5945843206427351559.post-68379212542295045682011-08-03T13:30:12.226-04:002011-08-03T13:30:12.226-04:00The point is not that criminals don't deserve ...The point is not that criminals don't deserve good lawyers. Of course they do! The point is that one-way cynicism that acts like all the morally questionable issues are on the other side is intellectual laziness, veering into intellectual dishonesty.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5945843206427351559.post-85821254091151879442011-08-01T20:59:30.316-04:002011-08-01T20:59:30.316-04:00Look, what you really want to know is whether I re...Look, what you really want to know is whether I recognize (as you do) that representing those accused of crime (or convicted of it) sometimes means standing up for reprehensible people who have done (and will do) reprehensible things. And if I do recognize it, am I either morally bankrupt or deeply ashamed of myself.<br /><br />So let's cut to the chase, shall we. Yes, I know that some of my clients are not morally pure. I know that I have represented some people who have done terrible things and would willingly do them again if the circumstances encouraged it. I'll have some clients like that in the future, too. And some are not above reprehensible acts designed to suborn the system.<br /><br />Will I knowingly put on perjured testimony? No. That's a violation of the rules by which we operate. Will I lie for a client? No. Same thing.<br /><br />But I believe in a system where somebody is supposed to stand up to the government - to stand between the government and the accused; to stand beside him no matter what and represent him fully. I think that's actually a noble thing to do. <br /><br />I don't think it's morally iffy. I'm not ashamed. I'm actually proud to stand with the reviled. Even when I disapprove mightily of what they've done.<br /><br />Not everyone can understand that. Not everyone can appreciate it. But it's how our system of what passes for justice is supposed to work. Prosecutors are supposed to seek justice (whatever that means). Defense lawyers are supposed to defend - even the seemingly indefensible.Jeff Gamsohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09869425697771419546noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5945843206427351559.post-42656874066302158112011-08-01T19:27:12.836-04:002011-08-01T19:27:12.836-04:00Let's add a #3, #4, and #5: Do you get cynica...Let's add a #3, #4, and #5: Do you get cynical about having to (3) attack the credibility of a witness by using inconsistent statements etc when you know she's telling the truth; and (4) putting on witnesses whom you believe (but don't of course know) to be lying, bribed, threatened, etc.; and (5) gaining acquittals where witnesses don't show up when you believe they're avoiding court because they're scared of being physically harmed (where, of course, you yourself have done nothing to create the threat, but where your client and his friends/family may be doing so)?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5945843206427351559.post-14263117910592922722011-07-31T14:44:20.430-04:002011-07-31T14:44:20.430-04:00You're really asking two questions:
1. Do I ...You're really asking two questions:<br /><br />1. Do I think that the factually guilty shouldn't be defended? Of course I don't think that. Besides, I don't get to decide who's factually guilty. But there's this: It's a virtual certainty that far more factually innocent people are convicted of crimes than factually guilty people freed by the courts.<br /><br />2. Am I cynical about human nature? Yes. Everyone lies. Sometimes about big stuff. Sometimes about trivia. Would I rather people not lie to me? Sure. Do I live in a world where I ever expect that to happen? Nope.Jeff Gamsohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09869425697771419546noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5945843206427351559.post-66433136327254840242011-07-31T14:20:03.904-04:002011-07-31T14:20:03.904-04:00Do you also get cynical about (1) winning a trial ...Do you also get cynical about (1) winning a trial for a person you know was guilty; or (2) having clients you know are lying to you?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5945843206427351559.post-43417597227598185262011-07-29T09:46:01.925-04:002011-07-29T09:46:01.925-04:00You're wrong about my problems with religion. ...<i>You're wrong about my problems with religion. You're right that there's no reason for us to discuss it.</i><br /><br />The key word being 'us', meaning you and John. Now me, on the other hand... you could easily discuss your hard spots concerning religion with me.<br /><br />Thanks for the honorable mention, by the way.Mad Jackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06190137186843630543noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5945843206427351559.post-42260957623713276972011-07-27T13:42:43.669-04:002011-07-27T13:42:43.669-04:00You're wrong about my problems with religion. ...You're wrong about my problems with religion. You're right that there's no reason for us to discuss it.Jeff Gamsohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09869425697771419546noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5945843206427351559.post-53086607516898429242011-07-27T13:35:34.561-04:002011-07-27T13:35:34.561-04:00I suspect the danger you think you see is the tire...I suspect the danger you think you see is the tired charge that hope in the hereafter leads the religious to not care as much as they ought about what happens here and now. To the contrary, there is nothing more important than what we do here and now. The hereafter is here. I assure you I care about what happens to others and about what happens to me. But I wonder where people who've suffered cataclysmic tragedies, like the loss of a child, or a wrongful conviction and imprisonment, find the strength to go on. Just sayin'. I think we've gone around on these questions before, and we don't have to go around on them again.John Kindleyhttp://peoplevstate.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5945843206427351559.post-29501466542272539872011-07-27T13:04:36.553-04:002011-07-27T13:04:36.553-04:00Whatever floats your boat, John.
I don't thin...Whatever floats your boat, John.<br /><br />I don't think there's a god out there, and I think organized religion (disorganized religion, too, now that I think about it) is even more dangerous than government. Though some good now and again gets done in the name of each.Jeff Gamsohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09869425697771419546noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5945843206427351559.post-26926795755494598842011-07-27T12:46:38.658-04:002011-07-27T12:46:38.658-04:00I suspect that radical worldly cynicism is the fli...I suspect that radical worldly cynicism is the flip side of the only lasting optimism. We were told long ago that "all is vanity and a chasing after wind." I don't pin my hopes on personal immortality. It is enough to know that God is God, and in Him (Her?) nothing that is true, good and beautiful is ever lost. It is evident and beyond dispute that the world as we know it is passing away before our eyes. The innocent imprisoned former client whose fate I regard as bound up with my own knows these truths and trusts in God. I have not broken faith with him nor he with me, and I look forward to the day in the near future when I can testify truthfully how I let him down at trial. I look forward to reading in the local newspaper that he will be getting a new trial because his lawyers were incompetent.<br /><br />The prospect of this not coming to pass would be absolutely unbearable were it not for the realization that none of us, not him, not me, are home. "We are all just prisoners here, of our own device." Of course, this is a truth that can be perverted. Scalia, as I recall, has sought to justify the death penalty on the grounds that, for religious people who believe in an afterlife, death is not the worst that can befall a man. "For offenses must come, but woe to that man by whom the offense comes." All that matters in this world are the actions we take for the sake of what is everlasting.<br /><br />I have said before, and meant, that I'd turn in my license to practice law in less than a second if it could free my innocent former client. Which is really just hot air, because that's not an option available to me. I am still up for the good fight, and believe there's much good I can do as an attorney. But to me whatever good I can do as an attorney is bound up with being an outsider, even (to put the romantic spin on it that you reference) an outlaw and an enemy of the State. And I have to recognize that ultimately I only serve as an attorney at the pleasure of the same handful of people who unjustly condemned my innocent former client. If I want to fight the good fight, I have to have more in my arsenal than a weapon which can so easily be taken away. I have to have the same measure of indifference towards my status as an attorney as it behooves a man to have towards all things in this world.John Kindleyhttp://peoplevstate.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5945843206427351559.post-7503521750151897902011-07-27T12:34:57.189-04:002011-07-27T12:34:57.189-04:002:17 AM ... Don't you ever sleep ?2:17 AM ... Don't you ever sleep ?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com