Law in Contemporary Society

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CriminalDefense 3 - 20 Apr 2010 - Main.AlisonMoe
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 Eben has spoken very highly of criminal defense several times in class. I am one of those people who still doesn’t know what kind of law he wants to practice, but criminal law is definitely one of the possibilities. I find it interesting, at least academically/abstractly, and I think I would enjoy being the guy in someone’s corner.

The problem is, as much as I would love to be the person defending the wrongfully accused, I think I would be uncomfortable defending someone I believed had committed the crime. This would be more or less true depending on the circumstances, but for some crimes in particular (gratuitously violent crimes, sexual crimes against women and children, white collar crime/public integrity/fraud), I think I would have a real problem.

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 I still struggled with a lot of the work. But having a different perspective helped me quite a bit.

-- DavidGoldin 20 Apr 2010

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>		Dan, these are very valid concerns. I think it's important to note, however, that similar moral issues arise on the other side of the aisle. I can't imagine being a prosecutor, and having to live with the possibility that I successfully prosecuted an innocent man. That being said, you're more likely to defend a guilty defendant than you are to incarcerate an innocent one- but the lower probability doesn't make me feel any more comfortable with the problem. I think the larger question raised in your post is the difficulty of engaging in a profession where your work has grave consequences for individual liberty.-- AlisonMoe - 20 Apr 2010

Revision 3r3 - 20 Apr 2010 - 17:40:55 - AlisonMoe
Revision 2r2 - 20 Apr 2010 - 15:32:12 - DavidGoldin
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