Man am I ticked OFF!!!

Charlie_Iliff · Jul 22, 2002

Boomerang:
the slime bag lawyers that defend them !!! They are the real cause of our problems. Preying on other peoples misfortunes for their own personal profit !!! 
I'm not sure what problems of yours could possibly be caused by the public defenders who draw a fairly meager salary, and who defend the vast majority of the "sickos". For those defense lawyers who are not public defenders, I suspect that few could be found, slime bags or nots, who made any significant personal profit from sicko defense. More usually, they have had to withstand the public scorn of those who haven't bothered to learn anything about our criminal justice system, or to understand the tremendous importance of the right to counsel.

Gary_in_Indiana · Jul 22, 2002

I have a number of friends who are lawyers and a daughter in law school along with my "other son" (my son's best friend) so please don't generalize lest I be offended.

One of my friends specializes in capital cases, primarily first degree murder. He has said quite often that the easiest cases are the ones where his client is guilty. It's the innocent ones that are tough. In defending the innocent client there is everything to lose including the right result.

With a guilty client, whatever the outcome you sleep soundly. If you get the client off or a conviction on a lessor charge or even a reduced sentence or possibility of parole, you've done a great job. If none of those things occur and the client gets a guilty verdict and sentence of life without possibility of parole or the death sentence you go to bed knowing that the system worked and justice was done.

I have to say I found that an interesting and not easily arguable take on defending murderers.

cp1969 · Jul 22, 2002

How does a lawyer sleep soundly in the case where he assisted a guilty client escape justice? That doesn't sound to me like 'doing a great job.' If I were that lawyer, I'd be wondering who the next victim will be because this person is not in jail where he belongs.

wroughtn_harv · Jul 22, 2002

How does a lawyer sleep soundly in the case where he assisted a guilty client escape justice?

First things first. He, she, it, is a lawyer not the judge. And if using tricks like presenting a Contitutionally guaranteed defense frees a guilty person then it's not the lawyer's fault. It's the fault of the stupid public servants that violated those same Constitutional Rights.

The lawyer just did his, her, it's job. There is no blame to be had.

If you wanna blame something blame the forefathers that understood Constitutional Rights were the most important issue at stake in this conversation. And that just like them doing their job in considering this it might also be important for public servants to take their job just as seriously.

Of course it might help if the public demanded professionalism out of their public servants. This includes not just the police but also public and private defenders. After all, first and foremost lawyers are officers of the court.

When a guilty man walks the blame shouldn't be given to the lawyer who defended him. The blame exclusively belongs to inadequate prosecution or poor police work or both most likely.

Look at what happened in the O.J. trial. It wasn't cause Johnny's so smart. It was because the police and prosecutor's made every mistake they possibly could. Yet look, they're just like North and Liddy, screw ups making a living on the telley and radio.

wroughtn_harv · Jul 22, 2002

Anyone want to start a new planet with me?? I'm starting to get sick of this one.

I'll respectfully disagree with about eighty to ninety percent of the responses in this thread.

Bob, the world is fine. I doubt very seriously if there is percentage wise any difference in the statistics between way back then and now as far as parents killing kids etc or even child molesters.

The sad thing is we have more people hence more molesters and more parents killing their children. It's just numbers and instant awareness when something happens. Benefit of the modern methods of delivering the news.

We can look at the animals and see probably the most important thing to learn is the parents and genetics teach the vulnerable to be afraid, very afraid. We can see it in deer or rabbits or any other animal. The young either instinctively or learn to be afraid of predators.

That's the best thing we can do for those who are vulnerable that we love. We need to educate them as soon as possible about what to do when they feel threatened or someone touches them inappropriately.

There are a couple of benefits with this concept. One it frees grandfatherly types like me to be affectionate with the kiddos. You see when they've been told what to be afraid of they also understand what not to be afraid of. So they understand the difference between my hugs and tickling and someone grabbing a feel they shouldn't be grabbing.

When an adult holds a child at a distance it's unnatural and harmfull to both parties. Children need to be hugged only about the same amount as adults need to hug them. It's not a one way street. Kids need hugs. They need to feel arms around them. Adults need to hug kids. It's as natural and as necessary as breathing to having a healthy life.

You know you read how some teachers are afraid of touching the students for fear of litigation. That just show what happens when stupidity gets in the same car with ignorance.

If the children and adults are both taught what is appropriate and what is not appropriate contact then both are free to enjoy the appropriate.

I look at the sexual predators like I do bears in the woods. When they come down and bother us we have a duty to keep them separate from our vulnerable ones. They are bears. Bears do what bears do. So we keep them away from us and ours once they're identified.

Sexual predators have a horrible record of recivitism. Instead of worrying about why they did it we should accept they will do it again until proven otherwise. So we keep them away from us and ours, end of story, until they are proven to be safe amongst us.

I don't believe in torture. Even of sexual predators on children. Americans used to excerise that option. It was called lynching. The only thing was it was almost exclusively used on African American men who were suspected of threatening or harming causasian women. Then some of the fantasies expressed here were excerised with public approval, even applause.

It wasn't justice then. It won't be justice now.

I don't believe in capital punishment. If murder is wrong then murder is wrong no matter who does it.

I have a good friend who's my age, fifty four, born same month even. Difference is I went into the Army and to Nam with my father's permission but not approval.

He went in with his father's blessing. He'd come home from high school early one afternoon and caught his father bothering a little girl from next door. He told the little girl to go home and he almost beat his own father to death with his bare hands. Two weeks later he was in the Army and then off to Nam but in the Green Berets.

He hasn't had squat to do with his father since. The old man is eighty this year.

My friend and his two brothers have what is called addictive personalities. Two of them fight the good fight with occasional breakdowns with alcoholism. The third isn't interested in the good fight and has graduated to chrystal. The father is also a recovering alcoholic.

One night during a relapse my friend called me under the influence. During his soul searching drunks do in the wee hours of the morning he confided in me his greatest fear. For thirty seven years he's been worried that he could be a child molester too even though he's never been tempted. After all his dad was a drunk and he's a drunk. It don't take much to dig up a good worry about being a molester too.

cp1969 · Jul 22, 2002

What constitutionally guaranteed defenses that are built into the constitution to free guilty people? I would have thought they would be to protect innocent people, not guilty ones.

As for a lawyer assisting in the release of a guilty party and one calling it 'their job'--as Mr. Lucas Jackson put it, "Callin' it your job don't make it right."

crown · Jul 22, 2002

Well said. I've always thought we spend way too much time and effort defending the sicko criminals of the world and not enough protecting the Legal, Law-abiding, Tax paying citizens.
I look into the eyes of my innocent two young girls and pray that society will somehow get better. (Probably just a pipe dream but my wish non-the-less)

wroughtn_harv · Jul 23, 2002

What constitutionally guaranteed defenses that are built into the constitution to free guilty people?

The very same ones that were put there for the innocent!!!!!

I would have thought they would be to protect innocent people, not guilty ones.

They were.

Now I think you got it!

"Protect" is the key word. When you don't protect their rights you put your own at risk.

As for a lawyer assisting in the release of a guilty party and one calling it 'their job'--as Mr. Lucas Jackson put it, "Callin' it your job don't make it right." 

One more time, the defense attorney is charged, as an officer of the court, with defending the defendant to the best of his or her ability and with every tool available to him or her. That is their job, period, end of story. To do less is incompetence.

When a defendant that's obviously guilty is released back into society because the prosecutors and police screwed up it's not the defendants attorney who made the mistake. Don't blame them. Put the blame where it belongs.

Trev · Jul 23, 2002

I doubt very seriously if there is percentage wise any difference in the statistics between way back then and now as far as parents killing kids etc or even child molesters.

Perhaps you're right. I'd like to see some solid research on this, if there is any. Intuitively, it seems like things have gotten much worse, but, as you say, it could be a case of an increase in reporting rather than an increase in the actual acts.

One report says "The report estimated the number of abused and neglected children increased from 1.4 million in 1986, to over 2.8 million in 1993. The number of children who were seriously injured quadrupled from about 143,000 to nearly 570,000." This is from the U.S. Dpt of Health & Human Services, Administration for Children and Families. Unfortunately, there are no details of their study, hence no way to evaluate if it was methodologically sound.

<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/news/press/1996/nis.htm>http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/news/press/1996/nis.htm</A>

Bob

leoniru · Jul 23, 2002

I tend to believe that not only are there more offenders out there plying their trade ( a NOT unexpected result of an overall population increase), but that there has also been a corresponding increase in the incidence of these types of crimes. This latter point I attribute mainly to the 'swing to the liberal left attitude' that seems to be growing in our society.

As an example I'll mention the recent efforts (and if I'm not mistaken, passed into law) to make a persons I.Q. score (70 or higher to be 'eligible' for the death penalty) a qualifier for capital punishment. When I first heard of this even being considered by our brilliant legal minds, I laughed to myself because I figured it had as much chance as the proverbial snowball in Hades. But guess what? Yup, it's a done deal.

Don't be surprised if 'Johnny'--while sitting in a room down the hall from the gas chamber--- doesn't give his best when taking his I.Q. test.

Folks, we have got to take a stand and say enough is enough with foolishness of this magnitude. These perps are NOT reformable or rehabilitatable (pick whatever politically correct term you find acceptible). If an individual is capable of planning and carrying out a homicidal act, well then, to my way of thinking, they are competent enough to be held accountable for their actions. A severely mentally retarded individual would not be capable of carrying out a lot of these horrific deeds that so often become tied to some sort of psychological defense. I don't want to hear how 'Johnny' has ANGER MANAGEMENT issues. Or how 'Susie' ran out of her sedatives and took it out on the kids one day.

Additional evil-goings-on are being actively promoted by the likes of organizations such as N.A.M.B.L.A. (The North American Man/Boy Love Association). These FAR LEFT 'individuals' actually promote the nonsense that it is perfectly ACCEPTIBLE to admire (i.e. lust for), seduce, and have whatever kind of deviate sex you can think of with CHILDREN OF ANY AGE. They believe that humans are SEXUAL AT BIRTH, and so children really want to be sodomized and fellated as much as they would like to do it to them. Right now, they and all of their allies (The Gay and Lesbian Alliance, etc), are actively pushing for the COMPLETE ELIMINATION OF ANY AGE-RELATED BARRIERS TO SEXUAL ACTS.
If you think our society is intolerant of such behavior, well then how can you explain the rough times that have befallen THE BOYSCOUTS OF AMERICA ever since they remained firm about not allowing gay men to be troop leaders? Donations are way down, and they're getting slammed by nearly all the mainstream media because of it. How can such a sensible position be criticized?
Now I realize that not all gay men are pedophiles but A LARGE PERCENTAGE OF ALL PEDOPHILES ARE HOMOSEXUAL.

Would anyone who has a son, knowingly want him off in the boonies with a homosexual? Wouldn't this be analagous to putting the fox in charge of the henhouse? The data shows that most gay men prefer young partners. Where do you think they recruit them from? Why do you think that niches such as in the clergy, or working at Disney World have such a high percentage of these 'alternative lifestyle' proponents? IT PUTS THEM IN CLOSE PROXIMITY TO A STEADY SOURCE OF VICTIMS.
I have a daughter now, and I can wholeheartedly tell ya that she will NEVER be allowed in the Girl Scouts for exactly this reason. Though my local Girl Scout's affiliate may be comprised of traditional-values-oriented-types, I cannot in good conscious, patronize in any way such an organization. I do not want her 'indoctrinated' or 'introduced' into this supposedly benign lifestyle until she is old enough to fully comprehend the issues.

On another note the judges that sit on OUR court's benches must be chosen wisely. And should they exhibit any acts of insanity, like the recent decision where the Pledge of Allegiance was said to be 'UNconstitutional'--- then they need to be removed from the bench with all haste.

Minority far left fringe groups cannot be allowed to dictate policy with regards to how criminals should be punished. We--unfortunately-- are reaping what has been sowed over the past 4 or so decades of ever expanding capitulation to these unhealthy entities. It's time to grow a set of gonads once again, and put EFFECTIVE METHODS OF PUNISHMENT into place irregardless of how 'the world' will see us.

I can never understand why individuals, who are unhappy with The United States of America and it's traditional values (or what's left of them), never seem to choose the obvious-- i.e. to LEAVE THIS LAND and go to any of dozens of other countries that either tolerate activity that's not tolerated here, or are so repressive that what they are striving for (e.g. no one can own a firearm) already exists.

I realize that I've rambled from one topic to another, but to my way of thinking, all of these topics ARE related to the initial topic.

Jim S.