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By:
Don Murray
Shalley & Murray
New York City
11835 Queens Blvd.
Suite 1220
Forest Hills, NY 11375
718-268-2171
Westchester
272 Route 202
Somers, NY 10589
914-276-2585 |
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Discussion of what motivates one
criminal defense lawyer to BE a criminal defense lawyer. |
The Firm |
How Can You Defend People Accused of
Crimes?
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In the 16 years I have practiced criminal defense, people have
frequently been quite frank with me with their concerns about my
representing people accused of crimes.
“How can you represent
those people?” is one familiar refrain. Another
is the question, “What do you do if someone tells you he is guilty?”
Implicit in these questions is a sense that my job as a criminal
defense lawyer is at best in a gray area of social acceptability and
at worst downright immoral.
There is even among lawyers frequently a sense that those of us who
chose to be criminal defense lawyers must either be incompetent or
crazy to select one of the least popular specialties in the law.
Early in my career I would energetically answer these “questions” and
try to explain the answers. But the more I tried to explain myself,
the more I began to realize that these were really not questions at
all. The questions being posed to me were not seeking information. The
questions being posed were, in the vast majority of cases, really just
condemning statements made from the perspective that the questions
really answer themselves – and not in a way that suggests there is
value in what I do.
So to those who question the value of what I do or who wonder why it
could be that any sane person would choose this specialty over others
that are vastly more lucrative, I say this:
Every single day of my life I wake up thrilled that I have the honor
of being a criminal defense lawyer. I am honored to be a criminal
defense lawyer for two significant reasons.
First, I am honored to be allowed to be a criminal defense lawyer
because it is a job that our Founding Fathers believed to be so
important to a free society that they wrote it into our Constitution.
Take a look at the United States Constitution. Check where it says,
“Sixth Amendment”. If you read the Sixth Amendment, you will find a
part that says, “…and to have the assistance of counsel for his
defense”. That’s ME. That’s my job. That’s a criminal defense lawyer
written right there into the blueprint for our society.
The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution specifically
guarantees the existence of my job. Not bad eh? Not very many people
can say that their job is specifically identified and guaranteed by
the United States Constitution. I can.
When the vast and virtually unlimited resources of the
Government are arrayed against a person accused of a crime, I, or
someone like me, is guaranteed a chance to stand up for the accused.
No matter what. It is a fundamental principle of our freedom.
The honor of my job seemed to be self-evident to our Founding Fathers.
How strange it is not so self-evident to many of the people who enjoy
the freedom they created today.
Second, I am honored to be allowed to be a criminal defense lawyer
because I am honored to follow in the footsteps of some of this
country’s greatest heroes.
People like John Adams and Abraham
Lincoln (to name only two) were criminal defense lawyers at one
time in their lives.
In fact, John Adams declared toward the end of his life that one of
his greatest services to our country was successfully to defend the
British Soldiers accused of murdering American Colonists in the
incident many labeled “The Boston Massacre.”
That John Adams esteemed above all else his service to this country as
a criminal defense lawyer in a notorious murder trial is a lesson for
us all.
John Adams did quite a bit for our country, not the least of which was
to help found it. He was our second President. And yet it was his
service as a criminal defense lawyer in a contentious murder trial
that he believed was perhaps his greatest achievement. What a tribute
to the strength of his belief in the importance of criminal defense
lawyers to the meaning of freedom in this country.
So important was it to Adams to see that the British soldiers in the
Boston Massacre case were represented by a lawyer, that he accepted
the job at great personal risk.
He believed that representing the soldiers in the murder trial would
be highly unpopular, but he did it anyway.
He believed that his future political career in America might be
ruined by taking the job, but he did it anyway.
He believed that his own personal safety might be in question if he
took the job, but he did it anyway.
John Adams demonstrated in his deeds commitment to his beliefs. It was
an act of great Patriotism to defend those British soldiers. Adams
knew that railroading the accused in an unfair trial to serve
political purposes would have been an ugly, permanent, and perhaps
even fatal stain upon our newly forming free country. It was
absolutely critical that those British soldiers receive a fair trial
represented by competent counsel. John Adams knew it, and ultimately
so did the people who made him our second President.
John Adams not only took the job, but he won. He won because in truth,
the case against the soldiers was weak at best. And it took a great
Patriot like John Adams to have the nerve to stand up against great
public outcry and speak the truth – for freedom’s sake.
It is a lesson we seem to have forgotten.
To those who scorn criminal defense lawyers, to those who
scorn liberty's last champions, think upon this:
Someday, God forbid, YOU may be arrested. And when the whole world
“knows” you are guilty even if you aren't, when the vast and virtually limitless
resources of the Government are arrayed against you to ruin your life
and take your freedom, there will be at least one person on this earth
who will agree to stand up and fight for YOU against those fearsome
odds – me or one of my colleagues. Even as you scorn us, one of
us will take up your cause.
I stand proud of my chosen
specialty. I know that many people who enjoy the freedom I help
to protect may not appreciate my contribution.
But for my own part, I know that at the end of my career I will
be able to “strip my sleeves and show my scars” won in the
battlefields of freedom in which I regularly fight.
I will look back and remember courtroom battles great and small
where the stakes were human freedom. I will remember glorious life
altering victories and heart-wrenching defeat.
And like John Adams, I will know that I served my country well.
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