Suit filed in case of "Girl dead, boy injured at Glacier National Park

[wetb4igetinthewater]

When I ran a liveaboard dive boat, I could have set my personal feelings and principles aside to give my divers an experience that many of them might have preferred.

Instead, we were known for being extremely rigid with our boats rules (which were “industry standards”) and if you did stupid things like running out of air or violating your dive computer or tables, you were not allowed to dive anymore, or had to sit out your omitted decompression in accordance with your agency/computer rules. This was all agreed to long before the customer boarded.

I could have copped out and allowed divers to break those rules, because “the diver had paid for vacation and deserved the best vacation I could offer”, but that went against my moral code, and I had 23 other folks on the boat that had also paid for a vacation who hadn’t violated the pre-agreed upon rules.

I know when I open my dive center, I'm going to have potential customers that I will send to other dive centers nearby. This will be due to a headache/liability that I simply do not want. I don't know if this will be appreciated or piss off these other dive centers.

And I'm going to get some negative reviews on social media for refusing to offer them my services. And I'm okay with this. My business, my rules.

Morally upright and honorable lawyers can and should defend the guilty.

That depends. If the charged is a father who brutally murdered someone who harmed his daughter in a manner that would make a medieval executioner throw up, then absolutely. A person who harmed an innocent, don't agree.

 

[Subfiend]

That doesn't mean that there aren't many reprehensible lawyers out there. Judge them by the honesty and validity of their tactics, not by their clients.

This is very, very true. Some lawyers don’t realize you don’t have to cheat to win.

 

[PirateFoxy]

Don't disagree, my point was mostly around the idea that representing guilty clients doesn't make lawyers morally dubious.

I think the way many defense attorneys think of it is that they are keeping the *system* honest. Their client may benefit from that, but that's because other parts of the system didn't do their job properly (mishandling evidence, for example) and those other parts of the system have the potential to harm a great many more people than just those involved in one specific case.

Basically, it doesn't matter how awful your client is - if someone messed up majorly in the process of getting to the courtroom, that error shouldn't be allowed to go unchallenged just because this one awful person will benefit. So the morals with regards to the lawyer aren't at all to do with the specific client, they're to do with their moral values about the system itself, and how you keep the system honest. This is just how our system in the US is designed to be kept honest.

That said, there are of course more and less ethical ways of keeping the system honest, and some lawyers may have even started out as intending to keep the system honest, but kind of lost sight of the forest for the trees and ended up just being creeps. But certainly plenty of defense lawyers (especially public defenders who don't make bank for defending truly awful people) have managed to keep perspective and focus their efforts on failings/errors in the system, rather than other shenanigans.

 

[formernuke]

This is very, very true. Some lawyers don’t realize you don’t have to cheat to win.

I'm leaving the BAR because of this, domestic violence and perjury is big money here.

 

[Manatee Diver]

I think the way many defense attorneys think of it is that they are keeping the *system* honest. Their client may benefit from that, but that's because other parts of the system didn't do their job properly (mishandling evidence, for example) and those other parts of the system have the potential to harm a great many more people than just those involved in one specific case.

Basically, it doesn't matter how awful your client is - if someone messed up majorly in the process of getting to the courtroom, that error shouldn't be allowed to go unchallenged just because this one awful person will benefit. So the morals with regards to the lawyer aren't at all to do with the specific client, they're to do with their moral values about the system itself, and how you keep the system honest. This is just how our system in the US is designed to be kept honest.

That said, there are of course more and less ethical ways of keeping the system honest, and some lawyers may have even started out as intending to keep the system honest, but kind of lost sight of the forest for the trees and ended up just being creeps. But certainly plenty of defense lawyers (especially public defenders who don't make bank for defending truly awful people) have managed to keep perspective and focus their efforts on failings/errors in the system, rather than other shenanigans.

There is also the fact that a defense attorney can sit and talk with a prosecutor/plaintiff's attorney and talk about what the desired end goal is. When they write their compliant they will reach for the stars, IIRC this case it was something like $12M. But a penalty that they are willing to accept if you don't take it to trial will be substantially less or involve stipulations that a court might be reluctant to force on a private party. Obviously only a handful of people know the truth and they won't talk, but I am willing to eat my crusty old hat if they got the full amount that they were seeking in the compliant.

But yeah I think that defense attorneys both civil and criminal are an important part of the system. And the people that chose to take that job should be vilified, unless they act like villains.

 

[chillyinCanada]

As interesting as this offshoot discussion about attorneys may be, it's veering off topic. Please, let's stick to the thread's subject matter.

 

[Subfiend]

As interesting as this offshoot discussion about attorneys may be, it's veering off topic. Please, let's stick to the thread's subject matter.

I was just about to say this. If anyone has any more questions, I am still checking in to this thread for another day or so. If not, thank you for asking.

 

[Subfiend]

One last bit of news: Lawsuit Settles, Family pushes to reopen Investigation

 

[wnissen]

One last bit of news: Lawsuit Settles, Family pushes to reopen Investigation

Good article. Interesting that someone has found a third way to misspell your name. "Cancannon continues..." I know how to spell your name, because there's a famous winery here in town, but it does have a lot of vowels and 'n's.

 

[PirateFoxy]

One last bit of news: Lawsuit Settles, Family pushes to reopen Investigation

Is there anything we can do to encourage a proper investigation? If random people from the internet contact the AG does that help or just annoy them?