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Imagine a lawyer already knows the guilt of his client, has all the proofs then too why he protects the unethical side, isn't that injustice to the other side.

Mauro ALLEGRANZA
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Nishant Jadhav
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  • [Right to be defended](https://www.toppr.com/ask/question/every-person-has-a-fundamental-right-to-be-defended-by-a-lawyer-under/): "Article 22 of the Constitution and criminal law guarantee to every arrested person the right to defend by a lawyer." – Mauro ALLEGRANZA Jun 13 '22 at 11:29
  • You are clearly confusing ETHICS with MORALITY. They are NOT interchangeable! Ethical is entirely man made & authority based. People I. Authority decide not subordinates. Morality applies universally & not created or governed by mankind. A moral claim Is supposed to be universally true aka objectively true. Morality is not subjective in Philosophy. Outside of philosophy you find that view. – Logikal Jun 13 '22 at 11:41
  • @Logikal Unless you believe in some deity and consider that the origin of morality BOTH ethics and morality are entirely man made. Afaik moral is a system of norms and concepts that argues how one should act and is considered universal. Whereas ethics is philosophical branch that is concerned with the analysis of morality. So often enough they end up being used synonymous. – haxor789 Jun 13 '22 at 12:24
  • @haxor You are confusing Psychology with Philosophy. This is a Philosophy forum. That does not mean every idea is a philosophy. That does not mean anything thinking whatsoever is a philosophy. You also confuse AUTHORITY with OBJECTIVE which I clearly stated in my comment. There is only ONE MORALITY. There are thousands of ethical systems. Ethics is based on who is making up the rules & may exclude those elite people. Morality has no exceptions or exclusions to UNIVERSAL rules. Claims that are objective must hold forever their truth value be it true or false. You did not address any of that. – Logikal Jun 13 '22 at 12:29
  • @Logikal I'm not an expert but that sounds like a highly biased statements. Afaik there are few terms as undefined and hotly debated as morality and there are certainly more approaches to it than just ONE... Sure one person might hold just one at a time and might generalize it to everyone universally but that doesn't make it objective. Like if that were the case then any crime where the criminal is not thinking of themselves as a bad person is a violation to the objectivity of morality. And I think you're confusing ethics, with the law. The law is about authority. – haxor789 Jun 13 '22 at 12:35
  • @haxor789, you are confused! You come in thinking incorrectly as if everyone is a philosopher & every thought is philosophy. I do not care what people think is right or wrong. What is objectively right or wrong is entirely different! I could say the same thing about science: what I personally think about planets & stars may be opposite of reality. Thinking does not equal reality. Objective knowledge has a definition in philosophy which you seem unaware of. You are highly emotive in your thinking & that is not supposed to be in philosophy. Emotive thinking is what Psychology is about. – Logikal Jun 13 '22 at 12:41
  • @haxor788, what do you mean my statements are biased? Which statements & how do you figure they are biased? Secondly, where on Earth do you reside where there is no AUTHORITY making rules, regulations or laws? All civilized modern societies have a hierarchy which equals AUTHORITY. Philosophy originally did not have such a system. Morality falls under Philosophy where there are no do as I say orders. There is no authority in Philosophy where we take orders quickly & without question. Morality is not about kissing up to someone in charge. Ethics does that, law does that & so on. Not philosophy – Logikal Jun 13 '22 at 12:47
  • @Logikal First off all this is very off topic and I'd urge you or a mod to move that to a chat, I don't know yet how to do that. Secondly you speak with a lot of confidence about these things that I don't see justified in data or even arguments. Like what makes you think that there is an underlying pattern of morality in the first place? For all intents and purposes who could have just made that up. Even if you argue it's "whatever works to keep society stable", then perpetual instability is very much also possible. – haxor789 Jun 13 '22 at 13:12
  • Let us [continue this discussion in chat](https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/137047/discussion-between-haxor789-and-logikal). – haxor789 Jun 13 '22 at 13:12
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    an ethical lawyer is an oxymoron. – Swami Vishwananda Jun 13 '22 at 13:21
  • @Hazor789, nothing I stated is off topic. You are just confused about what philosophy is & the concepts of legit philosophy as a subject. You seem to think philosophy is a hobby & any human can do it with no training. I am saying training is required & being familiar with specific terminology helps you discuss things in philosophy. You keep coming with this "who" stuff: who said . . ., who did . . . That is not a thing in legit philosophy. Asking "Who" is an authority thing & you seem oblivious you keep doing it. Morality is not about WHO SAID in the legit field of philosophy.You think it is – Logikal Jun 13 '22 at 13:21
  • @Logikal By off topic I am referring to the fact that the comment section is not meant to be used for extensive discussions, especially not if they do not directly concern the question. So I'd take that to a chat room instead. Also using CTRL+F I used "who" exactly once and that was more of mistake, should have been we... – haxor789 Jun 13 '22 at 13:24
  • @haxor789, I don't have access to the chat. So that is not ab option. I have to so it here. AGAIN all I stated is related to the topic. Perhaps you don't understand concepts as you should. I hope you are not taking this as subjective or just my opinion which I say is high probability from experience by the pattern of your thinking. – Logikal Jun 13 '22 at 13:28
  • https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/137047/discussion-between-haxor789-and-logikal – haxor789 Jun 13 '22 at 13:43
  • The way I've heard it explained is that they aren't defending the individual who did something terrible; they're defending that individual's *rights*. And those rights apply to everyone, and are worth defending even if some individual is guilty. For example if the police torture a guilty person into confessing, an attorney should strenuously fight for the exoneration of the defendant. One guilty person might go free; yet the greater good is to discourage and prohibit the use of torture in obtaining confessions. – user4894 Jun 13 '22 at 19:59
  • @user4894 I mean people could object that if torture revealed deeper knowledge of the deed than one could at least punish the perpetrator. But you'd also have to convict the cop and you'd likely run out of cops faster than you run out of criminals. Also if it's just a confession without further evidence than it's meaningless because people might confess anything under torture. So you'd have to convict the cop and might still be short on evidence on the suspected criminal. – haxor789 Jun 14 '22 at 14:32

2 Answers2

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According to an answer to this question: What does a lawyer do if they know for absolute certain that their client is guilty?

Lawyers are not permitted to assist in perjury. E.g., allow the client to testify to something he [the lawyer] knows is false.

So the lawyer is not permitted to be unethical in this way.

However, note the comment by phoog. ("The plea is not made under penalty of perjury.")

Chris Degnen
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The problem with this question is that "protection" and "guilt" are terms that might be a lot broader than you might have in mind.

Like you seem to think that the lawyer is giving their all to get any charges removed despite knowing that they are true. But even if there are lawyers who try that and take huge sums of those shenanigans. Their actual job is to ensure due process.

Like depending on the severity of the crime you might have an emotionally charged situation, people have already made their judgement before the trial and the sentence is already written. So the job of the lawyer is to make sure that the accused gets a fair trial. Like is his side of the story being heard and accounted for, are witnesses and evidence in his defense being considered.

Also "guilt" is a very tricky thing because that's not just about "what was done", but also about "why it was done" and "what else could have been done". So it could be that the accused did what they were accused of, but did so under the impression of doing something else. Like what if you're told your situation is hopeless and so you used violent force to escape just to find out that your situation wasn't hopeless at all. That is a very different situation from using violence to cause deliberate harm. And it is a very different situation when judging whether that was a one time event or whether there's more violence to be expected, whether they'd need anger management therapy or whatnot.

It's easy to form a narrative that paints the accused as the most vile and deprived individual and to sentence them accordingly and it's necessary for a good judgement to hear both sides and have everything on the table. And that's a tradeoff between avoiding innocent people being locked up or worse and actually dangerous criminals getting away with it. The latter is not the intended purpose of it but it's a risk you take to avoid the former, which most countries argue is worse, because it inherently undermines the justice systems as a whole.

So not every lawyer who takes up a mandate to defend someone that is obviously guilty is doing so for immoral reasons and is acting immorally.

haxor789
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