Justice, right?

[doomjockey]

Read the original article here.

 

Reading stuff like this always knocks me further toward cynicism. But it brings up an interesting question posed in the article. Is it right to put duty of your job before another's life? I realize how unlikely it is for most of us to face that choice and that all jobs aren't created equal but use your imagination here.

 

Did the lawyers do the right thing? Is there anything you'd have done differently?

 

Six paragraphs, min. (kidding)

[jojo man]

"If I had ratted him out ... then I could feel guilty, then I could not live with myself," he says. "I'm anguished and always have been over the sad injustice of Alton Logan's conviction. Should I do the right thing by Alton Logan and put my client's neck in the noose or not? It's clear where my responsibility lies and my responsibility lies with my client."

 

That quote really disgusts me. The RIGHT thing?????? Is that jackass serious? RESPONSIBILITY to the client he knows is guilty and not to the man he knows is innocent???? That sorry excuse for a human being should be kicked in the balls and thrown in prison for 26 years for no reason and see how much he enjoys it. The right thing (in my OPINION) is to see the guilty punished and the innocent freed and everyone has a responsibility to be a decent person before they have a responsibility to be good at their jobs. And obviously, he didn't give enough of a damn over Logan's wrongful conviction to actually do anything about it when he very easily could have. It's always been my belief (and i'm sure someone disagrees) that if you have the ability to right a wrong, then you have the Responsibility to right that wrong.

 

Edit: I want to make it clear that i'm not angry with DoomJockey at all, but I am infuriated at the idea of that whole mess.

[Thanodai]

I can see what the lawyer means, but it takes a really shallow person to actually believe it. Though, what would I do when faced with the same situation? Especially when it could cost me my job.

 

It's a character defining moment, imo. And in my view, he failed. Weren't we always told that not giving the entire story is still lying? I know I was as a child. It leaves me with a sick feeling that this man could have saved another man he KNEW was innocent, but his "commitment" to his job kept him from saying anything.

 

But then again, we all have to ask ourselves, what would we have done when faced with the same situation? I would like to think I would have taken a path that I feel to be morally right, by setting free the falsely accused man. I am thankful that I'll probably never have to find out.

 

-T-

[Xeniorn]

I don't know if I could give good arguments to support it as I've never taken the time to throughly think about the matter but this is what I can say about the matter of discussion:

 

It is my belief that the current law system, that is implemented in the USA and most of the world, isn't perfect but still is the best one available. While it allows things like this to happen, statistically it is favorable. If we chose to alter that confidentiality part of the system, it would lead to more injustice than the current system. I don't believe this system could be altered in such a way to be meaningfully improved, improvement could be reached only through complete abandonment of the current, and adoption of a completely new system - and for that to happen we'd have to thoroughly change many concepts not only of law but the whole society and principles of state, and it would lead to a complete different society than today's modern society. Just like the feudal system became obsolete so will this "modern" (as if in presently existent) society evolve rapidly when time comes.

 

It pains me much when I hear about things like this happening. Nevertheless my logic doesn't allow me to deceive myself with illusions of the possibility of correcting such errors while keeping this system intact or only moderately change it. My heart tells me one man, one injustice, a single case, is more important than the general statistics but I rather choose to follow my mind - and it tells me that I won't do any good if I intervene in such isolated, singular cases that are consistent with the law. I can do much more good by trying to improve the world on the global scale, so that the "new age" when such things won't occur, comes sooner, thus saving many men from such injustice.