Doug wrote:
> [Whatever credibility Ramsey Clark had - and it wasn't much - is now
> thoroughly shot. Sure everyone needs a lawyer, but these guys?
-Can you spell out your reasoning a bit? "Everyone needs a lawyer, but these -guys really don't deserve one"? Or should they have gotten a court-appointed -lawyer who would sleep through the trial? Did they deserve a trial at all? -Please tell the lawyers on this list who else they should not defend on pain -of losing all credibility.
Yes, everyone has the right to a lawyer. But they don't have the right to any particular lawyer, and when a particular lawyer spends all of his time representing those who commit genocide, that does effect one's evaluation of them as a person, just as a person who chooses to defend drug lords doesn't particularly get my respect.
There are lots of people out there who need lawyers, yet Clark seems to spend all his time defending scum like Milosevic, when there are a heck of a lot of people more deserving and in greater need.
The dirty secret of most progressive lawyers, except for government-appointed defense lawyers, is that they mostly do choose their clients, and you can judge a lawyer by the whole array of clients they choose to represent.
Big oil companies and union-busting firms deserve the right to counsel as well, but I have no respect for their lawyers, even if I would defend their clients constitutional right to have a lawyer. But don't mix the right of the client to have a lawyer with praise for those who choose to represent dispicable clients.
-- Nathan Newman