My father was an attorney in my hometown of 50,000. Everyone in town knew him and most respected him. Certainly, if you got into trouble, you wanted him on your side.
Because he was good.
My father defended a lot of guilty people. Not all went to a trial, of course, but he worked with people who were guilty of crimes. I asked him why he defended people he knew were guilty. The answer is below the fold.
What my father said was simple and straight-forward: "every person is entitled to a defense and the state must prove their case. If they don't do their job and prove their case, the defendent is let go."
"But," I objected, "you are letting guilty people go free!"
"Yes, but that is acceptable because it forces the state to do a good job of proving their case of guilt. If they can't prove it, the individual is always given the benefit of the doubt."
The case was a murder trial where an individual was accused of beating a baby to death and the court appointed my father because the court didn't want any doubt of the ability of a court-appointed attorney messing up the defense and having appeals take place.
The defendent was found guilty, but the defense was nonetheless spirited.
My father always differentiated himself from others who simply go through life by telling me that at least he was willing to go into the Lion's Den and fight the good fight. He may lose - but he at least tried.
When he died in 1987, my father's law firm took out an ad in the local paper saying that they would be closed on the day of his funeral and called my father the "Great Defender of Individual Rights."
Today, we've come a long way from that day. My father is turning over in his grave because today we lost all ability to defend our individual rights.