I know I said I wasn't going to post for awhile, but...I took a little break from school work last night and watched “Primal Fear,” a legal psychological thriller starring Richard Gere as the big-shot defense attorney representing Edward Norton, who is brilliant in the film as an altar boy accused of murdering a bishop. A common theme in the film is the question of how a defense attorney could represent a client he knows is guilty.
As I watched, the question occurred to me – which is worse, a defense attorney getting a not-guilty verdict for a client who is actually guilty, or a prosecutor landing a guilty verdict against a defendant who is innocent? It is a question countless attorneys, judges, and juries have grappled with.
I am of the opinion that I would rather see a guilty man free – he’ll have to answer to God one day, regardless of what our justice system does – than see an innocent man and his family have their lives destroyed. But that is not the point of this discussion.
The point of this discussion is the idea of the fear of making a mistake. To me, that is what the title of the film represents. My primal fear has long been of making mistakes; it is a fear of failure. That is why so many times in my life I have not even tried, whether it be playing high school football or waiting until nine years after graduation to go to college, because it was easier to meet expectations if there were none.
If I don’t try, I can’t fail. And if I only give something half an effort, I have a built-in excuse when I don’t succeed.
It’s pathetic, I know.
Our justice system is set up to give the accused the benefit of the doubt. That is why they have the right to legal counsel and why they are considered innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Mistakes will happen. Our system does not prevent mistakes. But what it does is minimize the negative impact of any mistakes on the lives of the innocent.
It scares me that I might one day make a mistake that will negatively affect the life of a client. Frankly, it petrifies me. But I cannot let that fear overcome me. My clients deserve my best effort. And if I am controlled by fear of mistakes and of failure, I will have let them down.
And I will have let myself down as well.
4 comments:
Great flick...
Loved it and have probably lived it once or twice.
You run across highly-intelligent, manipulative clients who give academy-award winning performances and you will have no way of knowing they aren't the genuine article until it's way, way too late.
Sometimes you never find out, you just have vague, nagging suspicions that keep you up at night.
Our country doesn't have justice, it has a justice "system." You have to trust the process, because although it isn't perfect, it's the best one out there.
You will make mistakes, but they very rarely will affect the outcome of the case. All you can do is try your best and advise your client honestly and to the best of your ability. Do that, and you'll have nothing to worry about.
Sometimes you win when you shouldn't, sometimes you lose when you shouldn't. Sometimes the other side cheats and lies, sometimes the judge shows up drunk at trial.
All of these things have happened to me. I find that with all it's defects, the system works pretty well and in the end things tend to even out.
Heavy stuff, and I agree that a guilty defendant escaping punishment is less troubling than the conviction of an innocent one.
I think the premise of innocence is definitely a Biblical principle. Why else require 2-3 witnesses, regardless of how credible the first witness may be? Even the concept of meeting justice upon a proxy sacrifice shows an incredible bias towards the defense.
The entire justice system is founded mostly on the Judeo part of the Judeo-Christian ethic.
1) The whole idea of defending both the innocent and the guilty.
2) The idea that you should fight twice as hard if your client is guilty.
3) I've heard that the idea back then was that if at least a few members of the jury weren't convinced that your guilty client was innocent after the trial, he has obviously been deprived of effective counsel and he should be retried with a better lawyer.
4) The whole concept that as a lawyer your job is to be a strong and able advocate regardless of your client's guilt or innocence.
5) The idea of finding the truth by letting both sides battle it out on a level playing field.
All great stuff and all very Jewish.
About failure...
The way I look at it, you gotta do what you wanna do because life is short and life is too short to be doing what you don't wanna do.
I started my own practice because I wanted to call all the shots and I was tired of making money for other people.
All my friends were like:
"Oooooooooooh you are so brave! I want to do that but I'm scared! What happens if you fail? What if you end up sitting by the phone waiting for clients to call and no one ever does?"
The way I saw it and what I told them was, "If I fail, I fail. Failure is not the worst thing in the world. If I turn out to be an absolute bust, I'll just end up exactly where I was before working for a big firm. At least I could tell myself I tried. I owe myself that."
Seven years later, it's still the best decision I ever made.
I have failed plenty of times in my life. If you ain't failing, you ain't trying.
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