Starr lectures on law ethics

Laramie Boomerang ^ | 12/5/05 | Micah Sturr

[rwh]

Kenneth Starr, former independent counsel and current dean of the Pepperdine University School of Law, outlined a vision for a morally, centered approach to the practice of law on Friday.

The keynote speaker in this year’s Carl M. Williams Speaker Series on Law and Ethics, Starr said that law should be driven by the principles of integrity, dignity of all people, civility, excellence and compassion in an hour-long speech in the Yellowstone Ballroom of the University of Wyoming Union.

“The culture of ‘right doing’ is thoughtful. It’s deeply analytical but it’s driven by principle and grounded in a moral vision of good,” Starr said.

While speaking specifically as a lawyer and about legal ethics, Starr’s message was still broad enough to be applied to many disciplines.

Corporate scandal and greed — from Enron to WorldCom to Tyco — are examples of a culture in which “moral judgements are clouded by ancient vices, notably avarice,” Starr said.

The lack of trust and the fraying of the bond of trust between the public and business, political and legal spheres are destructive to society — particularly a free market society, Starr said. Lawyers should expect themselves to not be complicit in weakening trust and should move to a new century’s model of the moral practice of law.

The current system — one in which there is ‘moral isolation of the criminal defendant’ and many lawyers don’t want to know if they have committed the crime of which they are accused — assumes that the greatest achievement is securing physical freedom, Starr said. The adversarial approach to law ignores other human needs like the desire to re-enter the community, clear conscious, reconciliation and forgiveness.

The law, as it is currently applied, allows for acceptance of responsibility, which itself is a moral action, Starr said. Similarly, the preservation of DNA evidence as a safeguard against misapplying the death penalty is also a moral action because, “we cannot tolerate the execution of an innocent person,” Starr said.

The legal protections granted by our national community to those outside of it are further testaments to the underlying morality that grounds the American system. Prisoners held at Guantanamo — non-American enemy combatants transported from Afghanistan — were recently afforded additional legal protections and have always had the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, Starr said.

“There must be some basic elemental fairness extended even to those persons who are outside our community. That’s how strong our shared sense of fairness is,” Starr said.

The shared sense of fairness was codified by lawyers after World War II in documents that represent some of the best of ‘right-thinking’ international laws.

“These moral values (are) embodied in exquisitely transnational and deliciously multicultural documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” Starr said. “Lawyers are continually invoking these transnational documents and calling on persons of goodwill everywhere to abide by these documents and act as responsible members of a broad global community.”

Responsible membership in the community of lawyers — if based on Starr’s expectation for morality — requires integrity, dignity of all people, civility, excellence and compassion.

Rumored protestors never materialized for the event and Starr didn’t make even passing reference to his role as chief Whitewater investigator during the Clinton administration or the Monica Lewinsky scandal during the address.

In addition to his current job as dean at Pepperdine Law School and his role as independent counsel, Starr served as U.S. Solicitor General under President George H.W. Bush, as a U.S. circuit court judge and as counselor to U.S. Attorney General William French Smith.

[cloud8]

If we get 60 in '06, maybe Starr is headed for the Supremes.

[rwh]

Oh yeah. That would set the left off. Wouldn't that be great fun?

[jjmcgo]

This overlooked speech will be considered a landmark address when Starr is nominated to the Supreme Court. He said all the right things.
They won't need 60. The Dems won't/can't filibuster. There's no support in the general public for that. Starr did his job. Proved Clinton was guilty. The Clintons then used their FBI files to blackmail the Democrats into acquiting him of charges he later pleaded guilty to.
Getting rid of Sandra Day O'Conner and Kennedy is the key to turning this court around.

[AlaskaErik]

When I try and explain the definition of an oxymoron to someone and give an exapmle, the first one I use is "ethical lawyer". The second one is "peace-loving muslim".