{"id":435,"date":"2006-06-21T13:01:43","date_gmt":"2006-06-21T05:01:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nargalzius.com\/blog2\/http:\/www.nargalzius.com\/blog2\/archives\/2006\/06\/2006_06_21_1301.php"},"modified":"2006-06-21T13:01:43","modified_gmt":"2006-06-21T05:01:43","slug":"another-question-to-the-lawyers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/archives\/2006\/06\/21\/another-question-to-the-lawyers","title":{"rendered":"Another question to the lawyers"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was reading Punzi’s<\/a> blog and I noticed he had the lawyers oath posted on the side:<\/p>\n

\n

The Lawyer’s Oath<\/h2>\n

I, having been permitted to continue in the practice of law in the Philippines, do solemnly swear that\nI recognize the supreme authority of the Republic of the Philippines;\nI will support its Constitution and obey the laws as well as the legal orders of the duly constituted authorities therein;\nI will do no falsehood, nor consent to the doing of any in court;<\/strong>\nI will not wittingly or willingly promote or sue any groundless, false or unlawful suit, nor give aid nor consent to the same;\nI will delay no man for money or malice, and will conduct myself as a lawyer according to the best of my knowledge and discretion with all good fidelity as well to the courts as to my clients;\nand I impose upon myself this voluntary obligation without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion.\nSo help me God.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

There’s something that I couldn’t get my head around.<\/p>\n\n

I highlighted in bold that which I couldn’t come to terms with.<\/p>\n

What if,<\/em> you’re a criminal lawyer… and what if you’re hired to defend a criminal you know is guilty? Why do these people still feel the obligation to represent them.<\/p>\n

Of course I guess the answer here is that they simply shouldn’t<\/strong> right? And that they have the choice to decline representing the said criminal. Fair enough.<\/p>\n

But what if a guilty person was arrested, and can’t afford a lawyer, one will be provided right? This suggests the fact that regardless<\/em> of the guilt, there will always be a legitimate right to represent both<\/strong> sides in court. Or does it mean that the lawyer assigned also has the option to decline representation? So technically in a perfect world, if you’re guilty, there can be a situation that you could forego the whole court process wether you like it or not… if you’re guilty of course.<\/p>\n

So where does the whole “Innocent until proven guilty” come in? I mean lets imagine for now that there weren’t any money grubbing lawyers who would defend anyone<\/em> who could afford them. By their oath, there could actually be a situation where both sides just say “let’s just hang this bastard since he’s obviously guilty” Even if the “guilty” person claims he’s innocent (assuming he’s lying of course). While that would be a super world to be in, it kinda contradicts the whole justice system. Yet the current justice system seems to contradict itself as well.<\/p>\n

Also, I watched an episode of CSI wherein they had 2 confessions to a murder. One guy (a brother) already confessed to the murder… then the sister came up to the stand and said that she<\/em> killed the victim. My question is if there was already a confession from the brother, then why bother with the court process at all? If someone said that he had killed this guy, with sound mind. Then the representing lawyer would be going against his\/her oath if they continued to represent him as “innocent” right? (which is what was happening in that episode)<\/p>\n

And the fact that the sister now said that she killed the victim. Obviously one of them was trying to defend the other… but ultimately that’s being an accomplice to some degree right? Why bother trying to find out who was the real innocent person when they both should be locked up for being accomplices.<\/p>\n

If I were the judge, I’d say they were making a mockery out of my court, and just sentence them both right there and then.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was reading Punzi’s blog and I noticed he had the lawyers oath posted on the side: The Lawyer’s Oath I, having been permitted to continue in the practice of law in the Philippines, do solemnly swear that I recognize the supreme authority of the Republic of the Philippines; I will support its Constitution and …

Continue reading “Another question to the lawyers”<\/span><\/a><\/p><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,11],"tags":[304,673],"class_list":["post-435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-perspective","tag-csi","tag-law"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}