[Michael2001]

It's all about the money. I'm sure there are some fine lawyers out there, but I lost respect for many after the OJ trial.

[RogerFGay]

And your plan to protect the innocent? Personally, I'm completely fed up with lawyers being agents of the court and doing everything under the sun except defending the rights of their clients. It's taken hold especially well in the family court system, where men pay tens of thousands of dollars to lawyers who cheat them to death and receive praise from the courts for doing so. It seems to me that if someone, even Bill O'Reilly wants to live in a different type of system, North Korea, Iraq, and China for example are just a plane ride away.

That's my talking points memo.

[Dog Gone]

What if the lawyer doesn't know whether the client is guilty? Most lawyers won't ask, at least not directly.

[SpinyNorman]

Right on the money!!!

Is it any wonder that these parasites supported Clinton and continue to support the Democrat party almost exclusively? Is it any wonder that this was the career that came most naturally to Bill and Hillary?

Lawyers are only supposed to preserve the rights and legal protections that a client (host) has coming to him/her, not create a situation that obscures or bypasses their guilt. Helping a criminal, admitted or guilty by reason of evidence, makes you an accessory to the crime in my opinion.

[OBAFGKM]

"There's no way on earth I could represent someone I knew to be guilty, and there's no way I would pervert the Constitution to justify that."

And if every lawyer acts in that fashion, there's no way that "someone" could find a lawyer and exercise his Constitutional rights under Article 6. Therefore, charge dismissed.

[Consort]

[LibWhacker]

The Truth should be the ultimate objective for both prosecution and defense. Perversion of the Constitution, indeed.

[Stone Mountain]

To me, this essay betrays an embarassing lack of understanding of our adversial system of justice. If he was proposing another system of justice, fine, we can evaluate it. But to say that defense lawyers are personally responsible for their clients that are found not guilty shows a complete lack of understanding of our system.

[discostu]

Bill's way off in never-never land. For one thing we've got nothing that shows Avila should have been convicted for the previous crimes, he's assuming that because we have an open and shut case against him now that means the other time was equally obvious. Further he's assuing that Avila's attorney knew of his guilt regardless of the quality of the prosecution's case.

[william clark]

The way that the system has become corrupted is simple. The right to a defense is to ensure that no one is convicted unjustly, which is where the lawyer's duty lies. His duty is not to win, yet that's the way it's become. The other side of the coin is the OJ-jury syndrome, where one's personal agenda becomes more important than following the law. I think a lot of jurors look for "reasonable doubt" just so they can feel smarter than the state (as represented by the prosecution).

[Pharmboy]

The lawyers always talk about the protection of the innocent when they are defending themselves defending a (usually) guilty suspect. Well, I have a question for all the fancy schmancy Perry Masons out there: what about the innocents who will be damaged by getting your guilty client off?

Lying and misleading and gaming the system for your all-important client leaves future innocents open to his robbing, assaulting, raping, killing, extorting, etc. Right?

And while I'm at it, how come Perry mason never had ONE, not ONE, guilty client in all his years on TV? Were we supposed to believe that everyone indicted by DAs was really innocent?? WHAT PERFECT BS THEY FED US AS KIDS.

[Harrison Bergeron]

The "guilty" don't deserve a defense and the innocent don't need one. I've always believed that this "Victim's Rights" freight train can lead to nowhere but Soviet style gulags.

[matrix]

"It's all about the money. I'm sure there are some fine lawyers out there, but I lost respect for many after the OJ trial"

The prosecution was poor, but the stupid jury wouldn't have convicted OJ if they had seen him do it!

Don't let the 90% of bad lawyers spoil it for the rest. ~8^)

[Texaggie79]

"It's a dirty job, but somebody has to do it".........

[gunnedah]

Folks I tell you the system will screw you with or without a lawyer.They speak of the Blue Wall of Silence and there is some truth there but with lawyers its not a wall,its a mountain.
Lawyers control both ends of the system and there are some who have stronger consciences than others.
The real problem with the system though is that court never does and never will search for the truth,it is more of a contest,battle of wills,skilled speakers and they even have drawing a jury down to a science.They, lawyers can find out enough about you to where they can tell how you will vote and what to play on to you as an individual personality.Then they figure how who on the jury will be the strongest,most vocal and lead the others.This is a real game and it is played like a sporting contest.
Truth and justice has nothing to do with it!
I dont know this for a fact,but I believe most lawyers dont even want to know if you are guilty or not,or at least they dont want you to say that to them,there is something there to do with their code of ethics I believe.May be wrong about this though.

[HamiltonJay]

I have been surrounded by lawyers my entire life, and I can tell you this. 75+% easily deserve the reputation they as a whole have. It is sad but true... a few years ago we had the lawyer who stood up and claimed his clients 25 year sentence was "cruel and unusual"... what was his clients crime? He raped a 5 year old girl he was supposed to be babysitting and gave her HIV... she was long cold in the ground by the time he went to trial and yet his lawyer actually argued that a 25 year sentence for this monster was cruel and unusual because of his disease it amounted to a life sentence...

Don't talk to me about the nobility of the legal profession, it is full of scoundrels and immorral louses. I am glad to see O'Reilly stand up and call these people for their crimes.... for generations now "getting the client off" has been the mantra... not "get a fair trial"... but get em off no matter what. They should be called to task when the act reprehensible, and since the Bar sure as heck won't do it... its about time someone did.

[Dan Cooper]

O'Reilly has got it wrong again ( and being a populist who goes whichever way the wind blows, it's not that uncommon for him ). It's the jury who decided whether Avila was guilty or not-guilty of the previous crime. O'Reilly denigrates the quality of the jury by saying that they were fooled by Avila's defense attorney into aquittal. If the quality of juries is the problem, then perhaps changes are in order there. How about no more voir dire? You get a random jury of peers, not a group of psychologically profiled and culled least common denominators. How about no excuses to get out of jury duty? Let everyone serve. How about letting the jury ask questions? Treat them like thinking human beings rather than passive receivers. Even the guilty must get the best possible defense if our system is going to work, otherwise the accused is easily convicted in the media on incomplete or incorrect facts. Of course media people, particularlly O'Reilly, don't have a problem with that.

[Argh]

Legal ping.

[loveliberty]

SpinyNorman said: Lawyers are only supposed to preserve the rights and legal protections that a client (host) has coming to him/her, not create a situation that obscures or bypasses their guilt. Helping a criminal (to escape punishment*), admitted or guilty by reason of evidence, makes you an accessory to the crime in my opinion. *My edit.

He is right. America's Founders would be astounded to find that many of today's defense lawyers believe it to be their constitutional duty to help guilty persons avoid the consequences of their acts. Their actions are in direct opposition to the Founders' understanding of justice (meaning that each person is equal before the law and should receive that which is due him--no more, no less).

Alleged criminals are entitled to have their day in court, with competent counsel, to present facts which may show them to be innocent of the charges against them.

Those law schools, law professors, and lawyers who use the American justice system to do injustice to their fellow citizens are perverting the system and wreaking havoc on the society (witness the Avila "acquittal" which allowed a monster to prey upon the precious Samantha).

One could never wish it, but if such monsters preyed upon the children of defense attorneys, we might see a change in some attitudes.

[loveliberty]

StoneMountain said: One is innocent until proved guilty. If the system is not able to prove someone is guilty, then he is innocent. No, "if the system is not able to prove someone is guilty, then he is not "innocent," he may simply have escaped punishment (witness O. J.). He may be innocent.

I guess it depends on what you mean by "subversion." In an adversarial system, any lawyer who doesn't use all of the tools at his disposal to defend his client is guilty of malpractice. If a lawyer sees a legal way to advocate for his client, he MUST do so.

Pardon me, but this is precisely the premise which has brought us to where we are today and threatens to undermine the concept of justice well understood by the founding generation when they instituted our constitutional protections. It is the faulty premise promulgated by law schools and the Dershowitz's of the world, and it has nothing to do with doing justice or preserving the principles of our constitution.

It deals more with deception, distortion, and an "anything goes if it gets my client off" attitude, including inciting racial emotions, grasping at procedural straws that have nothing to do with guilt or innocence, and everything to do with putting "notches" on the defense attorney's gun for the greatest number of "wins" (call that "losses" for the society who must have these guilty criminals living in its midst).

[Senator Pardek]

Just as everyone blames politicians when the voters are at fault, everyone blames lawyers when the problem is the jurors.

How could anyone with a room temperature IQ be swayed by the flapping of their lying gums?