... defending criminals at public expense, Charles.

>> How many lawyers are out there that defend individuals that
>> they know, or at least strongly suspect, are guilty.

With few exceptions, defense attorneys know, think, believe (take your pick) that their clients are guilty. Until I was satisfied otherwise from my own investigation, I always assumed my clients were guilty (and, in fact, only represented a handful who I ultimately thought were innocent -- and two of them got convicted anyway -- which was a gut-wrenching experience).

>> These lawyers are only out there to line their own pockets at
>> the public's expense of putting dangerous criminals back on
>> the street. The O.J. Dream Team comes to mind.

Three points here:

1) As I said above, very few criminal defense attorneys get to "line their own pockets at the public's expense". The final straw for me in my criminal defense practice was when I sat down and actually did the math, only to discover that the hourly rate at which I was being paid for doing indigent criminal appeals was LESS than my hourly office "nut". In short, I was LOSING money by doing court-appointed criminal cases.

2) There are relatively few "dangerous criminals" (most court appointed cases are for petty crimes) and even fewer of those ever get "put back on the street".

3) The O.J. defense team was privately retained by Simpson. They weren't paid a dime "at the public's expense". Even if you think O.J. was guilty (which I do), the real reason he was acquitted was a combination of inept police work and incomprehensible prosecution blunders. I watched a good bit of that trial and was constantly amazed at how poorly the prosecutors performed. If you want to read a very good exposition on just how bad the prosecution was, read Vincent Bugliosi's book "Outrage: The 5 Reasons OJ Simpson Got Away with Murder"; or see this website:

http://www.ojdidit.com/

for a video tape series by Bugliosi. He calls the prosecution of OJ Simpson,
"The most incompetent criminal prosecution I have ever seen."

>> Yes, everybody is entitled to legal representation, but there has to
>> be a better way, the abuse is too enormous and too costly to the public.

I'd certainly be interested in hearing what the better way is, Charles. We've been working on it for 200 years to get where we are. We have what is arguably the best criminal justice system in the world. Contrary to popular belief (a belief which you apparently share), there are relatively few abuses [I'd guess 99% of all criminal cases result in an appropriate resolution, given applicable laws]. Aside from the cost of the ill-advised "war on drugs", the cost of running the criminal justice system is actually rather modest and defense attorneys end up with a miniscule portion of that cost. Peter is absolutely right -- we spend many times as much on law enforcement as we do on criminal defense, with considerably more waste.

----- jim o\-S