Moderateman has started a thread for lawyer jokes, and I have contributed my share.  As have others.  Lawyers are not a very respected profession, altho they are very well paid.  They scream they are just doing their job, and I guess their job is not the truth or justice, but to maximize the benefit to their client, whether it is right or not.

In that many do a very good job.  But doing a very good job as they define it, is disgusting to what most people would call a civil and just method.  And today we have a case in Point.

Alejandro Avila was just convicted of kidnapping assaulting, raping and brutally murdering 5 year old Samantha Runnion.  The DNA evidence was over whelming, and there was an eye witness to the abduction.  This story, while the details vary some, is all too familiar of late.

So what makes this one so special?  Nothing really.  But it is what his attorney's argued.  Here is part one:

The defense challenged the reliability of the DNA analysis and suggested that the material found inside Avila's car had been planted.

Ok, I could beleive that in some stretch of the imagination.  Planted evidence has been known, but there was just too much evidence.  Still, if the lawyer beleived him I can see where he would argue that.  But then, after the conviction, he argued the following:

After the conviction, defense attorneys urged jurors to spare Avila's life, arguing that the abduction was an impulsive act prompted by a brutal childhood in which he was beaten by his father, raped by an uncle and neglected by his mother.

See the double standard?  The Lawyer KNEW he was guilty as sin, and tried to argue a lie for acquital, and then tried to argue 'abuse' for sympathy!  He may have been doing his job, but how he did it was totally slimy and immoral.  I wont say unethical, but it clearly would be for most people.

As long as lawyers lie and argue both sides of the facts like this, whether it is in the best interest of their clients or nor, they are not going to get the respect of the general population.  If he believed in his clients innocence in the first case, why did he then try to excuse the behaviour in the second?

The answer is because it was his job.  It may be his job, but it is not mine, nor could I stomach doing it day after day.  Nor would I.  One has to look at yourself in the mirror every day, and the man that looks back could not be that slimy in my eyes.