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I served on a federal jury.
A criminal attys job is only to "zealously defend his client", if he pays assorted experts, he gets what the defendant can afford to pay for.
The best defense money can buy, is basically how the legal system works.
Ethics and values dont enter the equation, unfortunately.
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I don't deny that things like this happen.
My question is do you believe the government ever commits similar abuses when it prosecutes criminal defendants? There are two sides to every story and I don't object as long as it is told fairly.
Do you remember Zacharias Moussaui? He's the man known as the "Twentieth Hijacker". He was convicted of being part of the 9/11 plot even though he never got on board one of the hijacked planes that day.
I mention him because some interesting things occurred during his trial. The government spent millions of dollars to convict him. He had to rely on a public defender to represent him.
The government assigned one attorney to the case who had no other role than to see that he received the death penalty.
The question is not whether one believes in the death penalty or not. The question is whether any person could receive a fair trial when charged with a crime with so many resources (funded by the taxpayers) pitted against them.
Eventually, the jury felt (as I did) that while Moussaui was guilty that the government had overplayed its hand. Moussaui was sentenced to life in prison instead of to death.
I think in an ideal world, more resources would be available to those accused of crimes who cannot afford to pay a lawyer or the other costs of their defense. The system does allow them some ability to petition for expert witnesses and scientific analysis of evidence in a case. However, no sane person would suggest you can get a defense this way equal to what OJ Simpson got.
Its a dilemma. Its probably always going to be one. But, I don't see the day ever coming where (1) rich criminal defendants are restricted in the amount they can expend on defending themselves; (2) where poor defendants get unlimited resources to defend themselves; or (3) the government is restricted in the use of money and resources it can use to prosecute one defendant and "see that he gets the death penalty".