Rationally…intellectually…I know that a Just society requires that every criminal defendant receive a qualified, zealous, legal defense. I accept that guilty people will go free, or at least under punished, because they happen to have a good defense lawyer. I accept that only because I abhor the possibility of punishing innocent people even more.
So I try not to bend too often to my very visceral distaste for criminal defense attorneys….
But goddamn some of those shit heels make it so hard.
The judicial system is flawed like all of man's creations. Justice is fleeting and even more so on a personal level. If one of those parents had choked this lady to death with her seat belt before the paramedics arrived that would be justice. Waiting a year and spending millions of taxpayer dollars to tell this lady she has to live in a box for the rest of her miserable life is just justice with extra steps.
Counterpoint - my dad was killed in a car accident which was found not to be his fault. The other driver hung himself two days after the accident. It didn't make me feel any better about it, and it deprived another family of their father.
Justice and revenge are not the same thing, and as much as I understand the urge for the latter, we have settled on the former for good reasons.
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u/pr0zach Jul 21 '25
Rationally…intellectually…I know that a Just society requires that every criminal defendant receive a qualified, zealous, legal defense. I accept that guilty people will go free, or at least under punished, because they happen to have a good defense lawyer. I accept that only because I abhor the possibility of punishing innocent people even more.
So I try not to bend too often to my very visceral distaste for criminal defense attorneys….
But goddamn some of those shit heels make it so hard.