In 1997, a terrifying murder shocked the whole society in Taiwan. The victim, a teenage girl, Pai Hsiao Yen, was kidnaped and eventually tortured to death. The criminals used brutal way to hurt this teenage girl in order to extort the large amount of money. However, when the criminals had been arrested by the police, no one wanted to be their defense attorney. Because being a defense lawyer of notorious people may be attacked by the citizens. The difficulties are not only about the expertise level but the psychological level. When your client commits the crime, you will fight between the moral concepts or the career ethics. Although being in the dilemma of the condition, lawyers still have to work hard and maintain occupational ethics even though the client is guilty.

     Initially, lawyers’ responsibility is to give the juristical assistance of the client instead of judging right or wrong. Every occupation should abide by the ethics, and there is no exception for lawyers. On Bruno Law Website, they mentioned: “a lawyer's true duty is to provide you with vigorous defense for the crime of which you're being accused.” Rather than wondering if the defendant is guilty or not, it’s more important for the lawyers to take their legal responsibility to provide defense on the court. In order to comply with career ethics, the lawyer should be faithful to the client and be zealous to the client. In addition, the presumption of innocence is the doctrine to protect the client. Therefore, before the defendant is sentenced by the judge, the attorney should regard the client as innocent. Due to the occupational ethics of the lawyer and the legal doctrine of the presumption of innocence, the lawyer has to work hard to defend the client.

     Secondly, in order to guarantee a fair trial, people who commit the crime still have the right to hire a lawyer. Compared with the prosecutor who represents the country and thus possesses with more power, the defendant usually stands in a rather weak position. In other words, the prosecutor has lots of judicial power; however, the defendant can’t access many legal resources. Therefore, the attorney is an important character to protect the defendant. To ensure the accused receive procedural justice and the fair trial, the law expresses provision that the defendant still has the right to hire a lawyer for the defense. Even though the accused doesn’t have enough money to find the lawyer’s assistance, the country will appoint a lawyer for the person to avoid unfair trial and improper interrogation. Consequently, the lawyer should defend the accused in order to ensure that the defendant ’s rights are not infringed by the country.

     Most people may think that we shouldn’t waste the judicial resources on someone who commit all sorts of wicked actions. Furthermore, they may say that the accused doesn’t need to be protect because they are not worthy of sympathy. No one will indeed sympathize a notorious person. However, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) states that “All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law.” According to this statement, even the accused should be treated equally as normal people. Moreover, hiring defense attorney is an important right for the defendant, not a waste of country resources. Therefore, we should not prevent legal assistance for the defendant because everyone is entitled to receive assistance from the lawyer to protect their rights.

        Regarding the reasons, such as remaining occupational ethics, ensuring the rights of the accused and viewing all human beings equally, the lawyer must work hard to defend a client. We should have more tolerance to those people who commit the crime. Try to put yourself in other’s shoes: if one day you become the accused, you will also hope that the lawyer can give legal assistance, right?

 

References

Bruno Law Website. (2020). HOW CAN A CRIMINAL DEFENSE LAWYER DEFEND SOMEONE WHO'S GUILTY? Retrieved from

https://brunolaw.com/resources/general-criminal-law/how-can-a-criminal-defense-lawyer-defend-someone-whos-guilty

United Nations (1948). Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Retrieved from

https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/