Rose-colored Glasses by Downing John

Author:Downing, John [Downing, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: USA
Published: 2015-05-22T14:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10

Guilt and innocence were beside the point. Justice? You might as well look for buried treasure in your backyard as look for justice in the courtroom. You might find justice in the courtroom just as you might find buried treasure in your backyard, but it would be pure happenstance.

The thing to remember is this: You and your client form a team. Think of a baseball team. The manager and the players may hate each other’s guts, but on the field at least, they bury their differences for the collective good of everyone (or they’ll surely lose). So it is with you and your client. You don’t have to like the man you’re defending. You’re not required to approve of what he’s done. But once you accept his case, you and he are on the same side. From that point on, you must do everything you can, within the boundaries of legal ethics, to help his case. If you do that (and nothing less than that), you’ve done your job.

These were among the first lessons Langley had been taught in law school. Intellectually he grasped their truth. The trouble was, he didn’t feel it. Never had; and, he suspected, never would.

For his own peace of mind, he had to have a reason for defending a client. Given that none of the people he represented was innocent, he looked for some other justification for defending them (money was not enough: he could earn money doing something else). What got him through most of his cases was that at some point he managed to “identify” with the client. Not that he came to excuse what the person had done, but by putting himself in that person’s shoes he was able to understand why he had done it: There but for the grace of God… If he could reach the point where he thought that, he could justify to himself his efforts. And do right by his client. If he were to go into the courtroom loathing the person he was defending (assuming he would ever agree to represent a person he truly could not abide), he was sure the jury would pick up on his feelings, and that could only work against his client.

In a sense, then, he was like an actor taking on a role. Some roles were easy. He had defended a client once who had under-reported his income to the IRS. As honest as Langley was in other aspects of his life, he had a moral blind spot when it came to paying taxes. He had never cheated, but only because he feared getting caught. If he had had a hope in hell of getting away with it, he would have had no qualms about doing exactly the same thing his client had done.

Some roles were more difficult. That of street mugger, for example. Leaving aside the question of right or wrong, a street mugging was about the dumbest crime it was possible to commit, the risk/reward ratio being so badly skewed against the mugger.

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