Should lawyers work hard to defend a client they think is guilty?
As stated in the Article Seven of
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
(1948), “All are equal before the law and
are entitled without any discrimination to
equal protection of the law”. In front of
the superior law, even the kindest good is
requested to provide evidences to prove
his or her kindness, and with impartial
judgement the worst evil is regarded as
innocence on the trial. However, when
facing with the notorious villains, people
are apt to lose the standard of equality in
the law and filled with the burst of indignation questioning imperatively whether those thieves, robbers, and murderers are worth the rights of defense. Although people may think why the law is helping guilty people to get off, we should use the fair defense for not only the innocent but also the guilty people to embody the spirit of the law.
Firstly, the lawyers must ensure that their guilty clients receive convictions which are equal to their crimes to justify the absolute equality of judicial justice. Under an ideal circumstance, the court must be an absolute fair space. Regardless of wealth, status, reputation, gender, races, religion, and any other unrelated factors, the space is open for any grievance. If the judgement of the court becomes random, the conviction will lose its authority. When the poor wants to state their grievance, the court without justice won’t be able to be their shelters. On the contrary, the conviction without authority will lose its intimidation to the villains. Therefore, in order to protect the value of judicial justice, we have to ensure all the good and bad receive the conviction they deserve no matter who the person is. As one of the trial lawyers of 鄭捷Zheng Jie, 劉繼蔚Liu Ji Wei once said in an interview conducted by Apple Daily (2015), “If Zheng Jie’s crime is to go to the eighteenth floor of hell; then it’s our duty to guarantee his litigation right and not to let him go to the nineteenth floor,” which shields the fairness of judicature as a lawyer’s responsibility. In other words, although Zheng Jie who harmed so many people in the MRT was found guilty without a doubt, a professional lawyer has to ensure that he gets the sentence he deserves. Take doctors’ duties for illustration. Based on the medical ethics, they have to treat everyone without discrimination because lives are equal. Similarly, every human being must be treated fairly on the court because of the same reason. Additionally, through the process of defending, the defense attorney can also examine the judicial system and help to find the flaws of it. If there is a mistake in the law, the defense can call for the public’s attention and accelerate the amendment of the law. If not, then, the attorney can justify the fairness of judicial justice through striving for the suitable conviction for the client legally. In one word, the value of judicial justice is to maintain the fairness of the law for both the innocent and guilty party. Otherwise, the good will suspect the credibility of the law, and the bad won’t be threatened by the responsibility for an offense. Therefore, a lawyer should keep faith with the judicial system to maintain the credibility of the law and point out its defects when it’s necessary to justify the fairness of judicial justice.
Secondly, defending for the
accused person will be helpful to
reconstruct the truth of the case. In
the court, the judge will surely decide
the sentence by the truth. However,
without background knowledge of the
profession, people tend to be panic
when facing with the court and a
series of tricky inquiries. A
professional lawyer will be nervous in
front of the judge and the suspicious
eyes of the public from time to time, not to mention a normal person or even a person of unsound mind. As a result, the depositions which are unclear and unreliable cannot be taken as an applicable evidence, and the trial either can’t be proceeded or will be executed unfairly. In this case, a lawyer can not only effect the settlement of panic through giving the accusing party the support of background knowledge but also help to restore the truth of the event. In addition, there's another advantage of defending for the guilty clients. Typically speaking, accused person and the victim usually hold their own views, which represent the concept of Rashomon, meaning you never know who is telling the truth. The course of event varies from one person to another. On top of that, if people only tell what they’ve seen and regard the tip of iceberg as the whole truth, they won’t be able to clarify the complete picture of the event. In the court, the judge can’t only judge by impartial fact and bias against the opposite party which is either accusing others or being an accused person. Therefore, it is important to have a lawyer to present and defend for the guilty party for uncovering the whole view of the event. Moreover, the lawyer is responsible for defending his or her client through legal procedure but not helping the accused client to hide the truth. This point can be further illustrated by the terms of legal guilt and factual guilt. From the definitions and the functions of these two terms, we can see how the attorneys defend their guilty
clients under rightful judicial
justice. So-called legal guilt means
the guilt which has been proven by
the prosecutors. Although the
defense attorney is not allowed to
say something against his or her
client, the attorney still cannot deny the legal guilt. As for the factual guilt, which is different from the legal guilt and hasn’t yet been proven by the prosecutor, although it can’t be used in the court as one of the valid evidences, the defendant can’t officially deny it due to the ethics as well. Thus, under a fair and ideal circumstance, we don’t need to worry about whether the defense attorneys will walk over the line between ethical and unethical behaviors. To sum up, having a defense attorney to express another aspect of truth is essential not only to avoid single prejudiced deposition, but also to alleviate the nerve of the accused person towards the unfamiliar court and restore the truth as completely as possible. The defense attorney will defend the accused person legally with judicial justice and help the person to get the conviction he or she deserves. As a result, the judicial justice can be realized through functional and ethical defense attorney.
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Nonetheless, many still wonder, “since the defense attorney has to waver between the ethical and unethical line, why should the lawyer still defend those guilty parties zealously?” Janet Portment, a professional attorney once wrote an article entitled, “Representing a Client the Lawyer Thinks Is Guilty” (NOLO). She stated that a lawyer has to protect both the innocent and the guilty person from being overpowered by the prosecutors or the opposite party which is either accused person or accusing person. From the perspective of the lawyers, although they totally have no idea whether they are defending for a person falsely charged or being indeed notorious, they should still protect the clients from grievances. Take a movie
called “The Lincoln Lawyer” for example.
Lincoln is a lawyer who specifically
defends for accused people. In the movie,
he deals with two cases. In one case, he
believes his client is guilty; however, the
client actually was falsely incriminated by
another defendant who was also the client
of Lincoln in the another case. After
finding out that he is actually deceived by
the latter client, Lincoln still defends for
his guilty client, but he wisely took
advantage of legal system to put him in
jail eventually. Despite gauging the real
guilty wrongly at first, Lincoln still
punished the true evil and repays the
innocent the late justice through legal action. Therefore, the only thing lawyers can do is to defend the defendant as best as they can and leave the decision to the judge. After all, we can’t sacrifice one’s innocence to impose sanction towards the evil. Besides, it is rarely possible to have a criminal who is absolutely evil. 黃致豪Huang Zhi Hao, a lawyer who often defends for those who are convicted of a felony, once said in an interview conducted by China Times (2017), “Everyone is born with cuteness; nobody is born with weapons. Then, why would some people do these horrible things?” He thinks the society has to delve into where the source of evil comes from rather than simply judges from the consequences. Therefore, when facing with those criminals, he insists on two principles: “listening” and “no judgement”. As he was defending for Zheng Jie, he tried to rebuild the empathy of Zheng Jie through telling him the family background of those victims. Afterwards, Zheng Jie finally realized the crime he had committed. He said to the lawyer, “If I had known you earlier, I might not have done this.” From this case, we can infer that there are too many complex causes and effects behind the surface of a crime, and the obligation of a lawyer is to follow the judicial justice but not the justice made up by the media and the public.
According to the above, first of all, to justify the fairness of judicial justice, the lawyer must defend for the guilty client; otherwise, the law will lose its authority. Through the process of justification, lawyers can also examine judicial system. Secondly, for reconstruction of the course of the event, we must have defense attorney to present for the guilty party. Otherwise, the deposition will be incomplete and partial. Besides, under the well-functioned judicial system, the lawyer seeks for an appropriate conviction to the clients but does not hide the crime for them. Although people may hold suspicion towards this, the law still can’t ignore those who are innocent and choose to punish the guilty. Even if the accused person is guilty, the cause of the crime can’t be simple. From the case of Zheng Jie, we can understand that the absolute evil doesn’t exist. Anyone is worth to be protected by the law, and the lawyer must strive for the justice belonging to both the innocent and guilty.
References
United Nations. (1948). Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Retrieved from https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/
Apple Daily. (2015). Three Lawyers Involved and Scolded for Protecting Devil. Retrieved from https://tw.appledaily.com/headline/20150307/JM2YY33F756KSWPFUJOVU2VJ2E/
NOLO. Representing a Client the Lawyer Thinks Is Guilty. Retrieved from https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/representing-client-whom-the-lawyer-thinks-is-guilty.html
China Times. (2017). Why we should defend for “scumbag”? Interview with the lawyer 黃致豪 defending for top three random murders in Taiwan. Retrieved from https://www.chinatimes.com/realtimenews/20170812001955-260402?chdtv