Lowering The Bar
July 16th, 2009 by ComputerBob
Celebrity criminal defendants go on television talk shows to claim to be “1000% innocent.” Criminal attorneys cynically exploit jury nullification to game the system. Judges make outrageous rulings that appear to be devoid of any morality, ethics, judgement or justice.
As a result, many of us who are familiar with the U.S. legal system — and especially those of us who have dealt with it as the victims of violent crime — have come to believe that its default mode is to painstakingly bend over backwards to try to avoid holding anyone accountable for anything.
Or punish anyone for anything.
Especially if the defendant is rich or is a celebrity.
So not much that happens in the legal system causes us surprise any more.
Disgust, maybe, but not surprise.
If any of this resonates with you, then you’re going to like the following news item:
A criminal attorney went on a national TV program and “…offered a million dollars to anyone who could prove that his client… was actually able to travel across two states and kill four people in the time that prosecutors had alleged.”
For an attorney to make such an offer in public opens a whole can of legal and ethical worms that could easily damage the attorney’s career, as well as jeopardize his client’s presumption of innocence, as duly noted by Slashdot’s thoughtful readers.
But, to make matters even worse for the attorney, one man reportedly accepted his challenge and met the conditions of his $1 million televised offer.
So now the attorney is trying to weasel out of having to pay the man, by claiming that he his offer was just a joke.
Are you surprised?
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