Steve Palmer [00:00:00]:

Alright. Steve Palmer here, lawyertalkpodcast.com, coming at you Q and A style or at least comment style today. The idea is we take questions and comments, and we, address them right here on the podcast. If you've got your own question, your own comment, leave it in the socials. Go to lawyertalkpodcast.com, and we'll cover right here. And by the way, this is not legal advice. Don't take it as legal advice. If you need legal advice, call me or call a lawyer wherever you live, and I'm sure, you'll get the advice you need.

Steve Palmer [00:00:25]:

The idea here is entertainment, folks, and maybe a little bit of education. So today, we're gonna take on a comment that came from our, we did a a they don't teach you that in law school breakdown of the Luigi, murder case. And, there was a comment that came, from at at nian 60. In this commenter I don't know. This commenter says, shouldn't lawyers know innocent until proven guilty? If you're that ignorant, then thumbs down. It took me a minute to figure this one out. It took me a minute to, to get the angle. But I think what the comment is suggesting here is that we probably said something at the table that Luigi is probably guilty.

Steve Palmer [00:01:03]:

And I I've taken the position, and this sort of cuts to my soul a little bit. Right? Because I think I've taken the position, almost publicly that, like, Luigi in cold blood murdered somebody. Now does that mean that he is guilty or not innocent until proven guilty? Absolutely not. So here's where I have the two sides of my world and and maybe more so than anybody else, not anybody else, but more so than than people who don't do criminal defense work. I represent people charged with crimes. I do it every day. I've done it for this is my thirtieth year. Almost all I've done is represent folks who have been accused of crimes.

Steve Palmer [00:01:39]:

And I have said time and time again, if I only represented people who were actually innocent, I would be broke. I would have been out of business a long time ago. So this brings up the question, what do I do? You know, how do I justify this? How do I square this? Because can I rip maybe maybe I'll look at it this way? When I talk to jurors and voir dire as I'm picking them, I always start with this this comment. Like, what do you think the number one question that lawyers get, criminal defense lawyers particularly get, let's say, a cocktail party? And I sometimes I do it Family Feud style. You know, a hundred people survey, top five answers on the board. Here's the question. What's the number one question that, criminal defense attorneys get at a cocktail party or a Christmas party? And, you know, one the last one time I asked that question, somebody said, hey. Can you get me off or can you get me out of trouble? And that sort of raised a chuckle.

Steve Palmer [00:02:26]:

But the the point I'm getting to is most of the time I'm asked, how can you represent those guilty people? How do you do that? And the I it it it my response is really more of a question or maybe a correction. Those are the easy ones. And I'll tell you what I mean. Because when I'm representing somebody I think is actually innocent, think of the pressure, think of the stress, and think of the gravity of that case, on my client, on me, and really society as a whole. Because the you're you're exactly right. This commenter is exactly right. Innocent until proven guilty. I'm not ignorant of that.

Steve Palmer [00:03:06]:

I do it for a living. But I think the commenter is making a point that we sort of jump to, well, this guy's probably guilty. So, you know, in my real world, I can look at facts and circumstances, and I can conclude factually that somebody's probably guilty. And at the same time, I can go into a courtroom and champion their cause until the end, and I do every day. And would I represent Louis? Absolutely. So this this brought me to I I've used this before, but there's an old movie, and I'm probably aging myself even beyond my own years, a, a man of all seasons. It's an it I think it was based on a play, play, but it's an old movie. And it's about sir there's a there's a famous scene in there where sir Thomas Moore is talking to, a guy named William Roper, and they're complaining about one of their rivals.

Steve Palmer [00:03:53]:

I'm not gonna go and watch the movie, read the play, or do whatever. But the dialogue goes something like this. You have, Thomas Moore or you've got Roper saying, let's go get this SOB. You know, let's go let's go prosecute him. Let's arrest him. Let's go after him. Let's abandon everything we can. Let's get him because he's a no good rotten SOB.

Steve Palmer [00:04:14]:

And the dialogue goes something like this. Roper says, so now you give the devil the benefit of the law because Thomas Moore is saying, no. We can't do that. And More says, yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the devil? And Roper says, yes. I cut down every law in England to do that. And here's the speech. Oh, this is from sir Thomas More.

Steve Palmer [00:04:34]:

Oh, and when the last law was down and the devil turned around on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted with thick laws from coast to coast, man's law, not God's law. And if you cut them down and if you're just the man to do it, do you really think that you could stand upright in the winds that would blow them? Yes. I'd give the devil the benefit of law for my own safety sake. So look. I I probably didn't do the acting as well as I could because I'm trying to read it. But the point is is that if you get rid of the laws for somebody like Luigi, and Luigi is not innocent until proven guilty, and you don't take him into a courtroom and make the government come into the court with proof, then the next time when you're the person on the hot seat and you haven't done anything wrong, you're not gonna have those protections either. And this is true today as much as more so than ever. And I'm not taking political sides, but when you start to say, well, we're gonna prosecute this guy, because we don't like him, and then that guy doesn't then maybe that guy survives it.

Steve Palmer [00:05:34]:

Now he's gonna turn around and prosecute you because he doesn't like you. The law has to be there for everybody, and that's what sir Thomas Moore was saying. And, interestingly, this is not new, folks. This goes way back. I studied legal history. But if you're curious, go check out things like the Assize of Clarendon under Henry the second. There's some great legal history here that that talks about this. But, I appreciate the comment.

Steve Palmer [00:05:56]:

I do. And I agree. But also understand, I I don't think we have to abandon, what we see as reality. I think I can look at a case and say, well, look. This guy's probably guilty. And at the same time, I can say he's presumed innocent. What's the difference? Well, this is like the real world, and over here is the real legal world. And there's two different there's two different approaches to this.

Steve Palmer [00:06:17]:

I do it for a living, taken from me here at Lawyer Talk Podcast off the record on the air, at least until now.