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Re: Am I competent to defend myself?
by ascio
Given the amount of time and money spent reviewing trials with the conclusion that the judges/lawyers made mistakes prompting a change in the outcome or a retrial, one wonders if attorneys are competent to try cases. After watching some young prosecutors making horrendous mistakes that I, as a nonattorney, can easily see I feel that the public is often victimized by allowing guilty people to go free. The very nature of the adversarial system we employ makes us vunerable to incorrect conclusions at almost every trial. This is one reason journalism students are investigating cases and finding such gross errors that the convicted are exonerated while experienced attorneys can't see the truth in front of them. The "it's not personal, it's just business" attitude that attorneys like to put forward also makes the rest of us feel like it is all a game with no regard for consequenses to innocent people who might be hurt either by being wrongfully imprisoned or victimized by someone wrongly acquitted. Maybe living in Florida has made my opinion worse - what with pedophiles running the streets left, right and center - but I think the rest of the country is just as bad.
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