Guilt By Representation

In the scheme of things, Ken White is more accommodating of the social justice side of the political spectrum than I am. It may be because he’s been repeatedly targeted by alt-right nutjobs, or that he’s less concerned about the harm done by the untenable political left than ignorant right. And he’s allowed to be anywhere on the spectrum he wants.

Not that it matters a lot when one’s a lawyer.

Yeah you’ll have to forgive my personality trait of judging you for accepting nazi money

As it turned out, it had nothing to do with Ken “accepting nazi money,” but Ken being friends with, and sharing a platform with, Marc Randazza, who was the lawyer accepting nazi money. So we have guilt by association on top of guilt by representation. The only thing surprising about this is that Ken found it less usual from the “nominal left” than the right. My experience has been different, and it’s concerned me that this has become a constant refrain from the left since before the “punch a Nazi” days.

In subsequent comments, people sought to defend the fact that attorneys represent unpopular and unlikable clients without squarely facing the “low hanging fruit” aspect of the argument. Sure, some are innocent, but not all, probably not most. Sure, everyone deserves constitutional rights, but that doesn’t explain why a lawyer chose to defend that horrible person rather than let the horrible person find another lawyer who was more attuned to his views. And then there’s the money answer: money.

For a while now, some of the more vocal public defender voices have promoted a particularly nasty view that they have no choice in who they defend, and thus enjoy the virtue of purity of duty. They must defend, and therefore cannot be tainted by their clients as they have no choice. They are constrained to suffer clients they despise, so they are not only immune from criticism for their client’s views or crime, but are martyrs to the cause.

In contrast, private lawyers are dirty. They work for filthy, disgusting money. They have a choice and, if their client is hated, they could have passed. If they didn’t, they are responsible for their client’s views and crime. They chose to be their lawyer. Even worse, they chose to be paid money to be their lawyer, the dirtiest, least virtuous reason possible.

This view isn’t merely one parroted by the non-lawyer left, but too often by public defenders as well. Granted, they’re purpose is to overcome decades of being considered third-rate lawyers, “public pretenders” as client’s often call them. But they do so by denigrating their next door neighbors or “best friends,” private criminal defense lawyers, There has long been a tension between PDs and the private bar, but it has similarly been understood that we live and work together, for better or worse. And we share a common adversary, the prosecution.

After disclosures of public defenders admitting they were incapable of providing competent representation, there was a push to elevate their profile and the perception that they were a bunch of underpaid, incompetent warm bodies. Unfortunately, some chose to do so at the expense of the private bar. Their weapon was that private lawyers chose to “associate” with despicable people for money.

Whether they actually believe this nonsense or merely use to pander to the unduly passionate isn’t clear. What is clear is that the message is being absorbed by the woke, that private lawyers who represent awful people for money are, by extension, as awful as their clients. And as reflected in the bizarre accusation hurled at Ken, lawyers who are friends or associated with lawyers who represent awful people are, by double extension, similarly tainted.

Years ago, we sought to explain that this wasn’t the way lawyers approached their duties. When baby lawyers went all squishy about what we do, confused about how they could achieve whatever flavor of “justice” they felt in their hearts, we responded severely.

The mind is a fascinating organ, allowing us to play all sorts of nasty, ugly games with ourselves to permit us to believe what we want to believe, that we are serving some higher calling while still doing our job. Criminal defense lawyers hold all sorts of political and philosophical views, spanning the same spectrum as anyone else. But when we enter the well, we’re just criminal defense lawyers. We leave our personal world outside the courtroom, and inside we defend our clients, whether saint or sinner.

Lawyers represent clients. Criminal defense lawyers defend. First Amendment lawyers like Randazza represent clients’ free speech rights. What we never do is question whether there is some affiliation between the client in need of representation and the lawyer who provides it.

But we’re now beyond this question, even though it’s been resolved by many in the worst possible way. In the minds of the insipid, only a nazi sympathizer would willingly choose to represent a nazi. And if representing one is “literally horrible,” representing more than one, even if you similarly represent clients deemed acceptable by the woke, is conclusive proof that you’re one of them.

If shaming lawyers for representing unacceptable clients isn’t bad enough, however, we’ve now come to the point where being associated, no less friendly, with lawyers who represent the hated is itself cause for shaming. Randazza is awful for defending bad people? That makes Ken awful for being friends with Randazza, for having any association with Randazza. Shame on you, Ken, for not merely not representing awful people, but for being friends with lawyers who represent awful people.

Guess what? I’m friends with Randazza too. I’m friends with Ken White. I’m friends with Mark Bennett and Mike Cernovich. I have spent my career defending people who have done horrible things. I was paid for my services, and often paid very well. I have no regrets for doing this, or for whom I call friend.

Unlike Ken, however, I see this attitude and approach from the left as a far greater threat to what we do than from the right, as the right has never thought well of those of us who defend the accused, while the left understood that someone needed to stand next to the most despised in society. This has changed, and it’s now extending beyond just the job we do but with our associating with others who do the job as well.

It’s not that we ever expected to win a popularity contest for doing the nasty work of the legal system, but I’ll be damned if anyone, if Ken White, is to be shamed by the left for being a private lawyer and being friends with other private lawyers who don’t represent their approved clients.

Guilt By Representation curated from Simple Justice