From:
dtiquips-admin@clouds.com [mailto:dtiquips-admin@clouds.com] On Behalf Of
JSFarnam@aol.comSent: Tuesday, May 05, 2009 1:46 PM
To:
dtiquips@clouds.comSubject: [Dtiquips] Lawyers!
5 May 09
Selection of a Lawyer:
My friend and colleague Mas Ayoob had sage advice for us at his lecture
during the Polite Society Event in Tulsa, OK last week. The following is a
phenomenon that I have noticed too, but Mas, who does of lot more expert
legal consulting than I do, masterfully focused in on the issue.
Representing criminal defendants is a narrow law speciality. Most lawyers
don't know much about it. Of course, all criminal defendants are entitled
to competent representation, so our System is not tempted to railroad
defendants, for the sake of expediency, politics, nor a host of other
illegitimate reasons. Sometimes it happens anyway!
The problem is that the vast majority of criminal defendants are, in fact,
guilty as charged! Most are also indigent, sleazy, unstable, and have a
criminal record already. In fact, the only classes of criminal defendants
who have money and who are willing to spend it defending themselves and their
reputations are those accused of (1) drunk driving, (2) molesting
children, and (3) dealing in illegal drugs. The vast majority of other criminal
defendants don't have two nickels to rub together!
In every town, out of hundreds of practicing lawyers, there is only a
handful whose practice includes representing criminal defendants. They spend a
lot of time with defendants accused of the foregoing crimes. They know,
and their clients concede, that their clients are almost always guilty. As
such, they are accustomed, often far too accustomed, to "making deals" in
order to get their guilty client the best outcome they think they can.
That, of course, is their job!
However, when you, a good and decent person, are compelled by circumstance
to righteously and lawfully defend yourself with gunfire, you are not
guilty of any crime! And, a real problem may develop when you hire a lawyer to
represent you who is habituated to representing guilty clients! Many have
never represented a client who is not guilty, and who is, in addition, a
decent and upright person, wrongly accused by a mendacious prosecutor
pursuing a personal, anti-gun agenda.
Lawyers like this may arbitrarily lump you in with the rest of their
clients and thus jump at the first "deal" offered by the prosecutor, rather than
carry your case forward.
Juries rock! And, it may be necessary, at trial, to get your side of the
story before a bunch of ordinary people who can imagine what they would have
done under the same circumstances in which you found yourself.
Only the USA still has juries, and you are entitled to demand one! They
have been eliminated in most other parts of the world, owing to power-hungry
despots who want complete personal control of the "justice" system. Our
still far-from-perfect System is a lumbering bureaucracy which, like all
bureaucracies, exists mostly to serve itself. And, you won't have to look
very hard to find examples of injustice. In fact, one can persuasively argue
that our System is terrible, except for all the other systems!
Mas' point is that, in gun-cases, well-know and flamboyant defense
attorneys may not be your best choice, simply because they may not want to believe
you are not a criminal, like the rest of their clients. You need to find
a lawyer who, at least occasionally, represents guiltless people, wrongly
accused, who knows something about guns and people who own them, and who
knows credible experts who can assist him.
Your best source is the ACLDN (Armed Citizens' Legal Defense Network).
You need to be a member! Call them at 360 978 5200
/John
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