lawyers for everyone?

@cripfemme (7698)
United States
August 7, 2008 6:23pm CST
I know we are constitutionally guaranteed the right to a lawyer no matter who we are or what we did. If you are poor, the state even has to pay for one. I might be watching too much Law and Order or becoming jaded in my old age (I'm 32), but some people you have to wonder whether they deserve a lawyer or not. I'm talking about seriously socially disturbed people. Your pedophiles, your serial rapists, your Charles Mansons. These people are for the most part unredeemable and if we let them out ever they're going to do it again. So I'm a little alarmed at the idea of my tax dollars (all $96.00 of them) going to help defend such individuals who deserve to be in jail. I'm pretty liberal so this is opinion, so this might surprise people. What do you all think about this? I know that most of the time public defenders are good people with their hearts in the right places. However, why should they who don't get paid enough anyway have to defend the scum of the Earth? It doesn't seem fair.
1 person likes this
7 responses
@Uroborus (908)
• Canada
8 Aug 08
Your post makes the assumption that everyone who is charged with a crime should be presumed guilty unless proven otherwise, and proving otherwise would be very difficult in any event without a lawyer. This is the opposite of our justice system. Are you arguing in fact that anyone arrested should NOT be presumed innocent until proven guilty? Are you suggesting that police never arrest the wrong person? (even Law and Order shows this to be the case at times). The nature of the crime has nothing to do with whether or not someone can be wrongfully arrested. In fact, even after going through our justice system there have been many cases where people have not only been wrongfully arrested, but wrongfully convicted and sentenced. The right having a lawyer increases, not decreases, as the nature of the crime gets more serious. This is because the nature of the punishment also gets more serious, and so the "proving beyond a reasonable doubt" test becomes more important. Oh, one final thing. I don't get my science and technology information from watching shows like Star Trek, and ,for the same reason, I don't get my social justice information from shows like Law and Order. I do in fact enjoy both these shows, but it's for entertainment.
@cripfemme (7698)
• United States
8 Aug 08
I don't get my political information from Law & Order either. It's just the episode I was watching made me like think about this sort of thing.
@Uroborus (908)
• Canada
8 Aug 08
Thnak you for responding back. The comment at the end of my post was tongue in cheek. What do you think of the rest of my post though? Specifically. If you don't offer a fair trial to someone arrested for a horrible crime, then you are assuming they are guilty just because they were arrested.
@soooobored (1184)
• United States
8 Aug 08
I am a fan of the system, and checking it to make sure that it works. Yeah, there are some people that maybe should skip the trial and go straight to jail, DO NOT PASS GO for that matter. If the system works, the people you are talking about will go to jail regardless. And if it doesn't (i.e. OJ) it points out errors that need to be worked on. But just skipping past the process to get to the final result is a slippery slope, yeah, we ALL agree Charles Manson should go to jail. Maybe the next guy, 95% agree s/he should go to jail. And the next, 90%. And then it's really just a popularity contest (i.e. OJ). But ultimately, I am a fan of the process. And I think that a good number of people who become involved in law feel the same way. Hope that answers your question!
@cripfemme (7698)
• United States
8 Aug 08
I love your response. This discussion actually made me think a lot and stop being such a cynic, which I'm not usually anyway, but it helped me realize that my general view of life which is that everybody, no matter what they do, deserves to get the best our justice system has to offer.
• United States
9 Aug 08
Thanks, I'm glad you liked it!
@Taskr36 (13963)
• United States
9 Aug 08
Well we have to work with the justice system we have. In many ways, the cards are stacked against the prosecution. The reason for that is that the framers preferred the risk of guilty people going free to innocent people being locked up. If a guilty person goes free, there's hope that he may reform, or if he is caught again, he'll be convicted. If an innocent person is locked up... Well he's innocent and nothing is going to fix what he's going through. As for lawyers defending scum, we don't always know these people are scum and it's during the trial we often make that determination. It's not always the lawyers job to get his client off, but often to negotiate a fair punishment through a plea bargain. Not all murderers are Charles Manson. Some are people who got caught up in the heat of the moment and deserve more leniency than someone like him. I think rapists are some of the worst scum of the earth, second only to child molesters and used care salesman, but even then, many women file false rape reports to extort money from people as happened with athletes like Nick Anderson, Erik Williams, and Michael Irvin.
• United States
8 Aug 08
It is fair for everyone to get a lawyer. That is because if someone were to be denied a lawyer the justice system would end up corrupted and the next thing you know people who double park will not be entitled a lawyer just because someone thinks what he did was really really bad. I think everyone deserves to be defended by lawyer. Not all who are accused are automatically guilty. There is no way to measure opinions on who is the worst criminal in the world because everyone has a different opinion on which crime is the worst.
@spalladino (17891)
• United States
8 Aug 08
I think that, if you're going to be a defense attorney, you've got to be willing to defend scum because you're not going to be defending too many truly innocent people. BUT, if there is just ONE innocent person charged with a crime, that person should have the right to an attorney who will defend him to the best of his ability. In order to ensure that this happens, everyone is entitled to an attorney. Fortunately, most of the time the scum that you posted about are convicted.
• Nigeria
8 Aug 08
hello law is the key to governance but people tend to change it from the true porpose of it to selfish reason,i believe law brings about unity,organisation,transperency.
• United States
7 Aug 08
I disagree, it is VERY fair. Everyone deserves to have a case where they can defend themselves, you would think very different if you saw this one movie I had to watch in my government class, it explained it beautifully. Everyone, even the biggest scum in the world, deserves a fair trial, I don't care how bad they may be. This keeps justice less corrupt if everyone can have fair trials. Look into the 1963 Gideon v. Wainwright case, and you may understand what I mean better. That case made United States history, requiring the right for all to have lawyers. I would not be too harsh on suspects, you are innocent until proven guilty, no one should have a marred record until it is proved. It makes me mad that people see others in handcuffs and they automatically think "WHAT DID HE DO???", you should more so think, "What is he being accused of?". Public defenders aren't exactly the best lawyers either, so the odds are in favor for the prosecutors.