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Clarence Darrow was called the
"attorney for the damned." During a period of social,
economic, and political conflict in America, he defended unionists,
political radicals, and racial and religious minorities.
Darrow epitomized the crusading lawyer, to whom cases were causes.
Defending Bill Haywood, a miners' union leader accused of a bombing-assassination,
he told the jury:
I speak for the poor, for the weak, for the weary, for that
long line of men who in darkness and despair have borne the labors
of the human race . . .. If you should decree Bill Haywood's
death, [your act will be applauded] in the great railroad offices
of our great cities . . ., amongst the spiders of Wall Street
. . ., [i]n every bank in the world, where men hate Haywood because
he fights for the poor and against the accursed system upon which
the favored live and grow rich and fat . . .. But if your verdict
should be "Not Guilty," there are still those who will
reverently bow their heads and thank these twelve men for the
life and the character they have saved. Out on the broad prairies
where men toil with their hands, out on the wide ocean where
men are tossed and buffeted on the waves, through our mills and
factories, and down deep under the earth, thousands of men and
of women and children, men who labor, men who suffer, women and
children weary with care and toil, these men and these women
and these children will kneel tonight and ask their God to guide
your judgment. These men and these women and these little children,
the poor, the weak, and the suffering of the world will stretch
out their hands to this jury, and implore you to save Haywood's
life.
When he defended blacks charged with shooting one of a mob
attacking their home, Darrow challenged the jury:
If I thought any of you had any opinion about the guilt of
my clients, I wouldn't worry, because that might be changed.
What I'm worried about is prejudice. They are harder to change.
They come with your mother's milk and stick like the color of
the skin. I know that if these defendants had been a white group
defending themselves from a colored mob, they never would have
been arrested or tried. My clients are charged with murder, but
they are really charged with being black.
Darrow brought to his advocacy a strongly held belief in the
justice of his clients' causes, as well as oratorical skills
enriched by erudition. Defending John Scopes for teaching evolution,
he used the Bible to confound the prosecution. Arguing to save
Leopold and Loeb from execution for murder, he employed psychology,
philosophy, and poetry. The judge was reported to be in tears
as Darrow concluded with Omar Khayyam's:
So I be written in the Book of Love
I do not care about that Book above.
Erase my name or write it as you will,
So I be written in the Book of Love.
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Kent A. Gernander is president
of the MSBA. A general practice and trial lawyer in the Winona
firm of Streater & Murphy, P.A., he is a graduate of Harvard
College and of the University of Minnesota Law School. |
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As a young lawyer, I represented criminal defendants, usually
by court appointment. My clients were accused of burglary, robbery,
assault, drug possession, and other common crimes. Many had confessed
their crimes or were caught red-handed. Few represented causes
or oppressed groups. I found: you can't pick your clients; clients
seldom are causes; and philosophers and poets should be quoted
to Winona juries sparingly if at all.
Most criminal defense is mundane at best; it is frequently unrewarding,
and sometimes painful. Much of it is done today by public defenders,
who are inadequately paid, misunderstood, and unappreciated.
Howie Kramer was recently tried and convicted in Houston County
for killing his infant son. He was accused of wrapping his son
in plastic and leaving him in the woods to die, in hopes of eliciting
sympathy from a former girlfriend. Donald Blom was recently tried
and convicted in St. Louis County for abducting, killing, and
incinerating the remains of a young woman. Both Kramer and Blom
confessed, recanted, and stood trial in highly publicized and
emotionally charged proceedings. Kramer was defended by Candace
Rasmussen, a Winona public defender. Blom was defended on federal
weapons charges by Richard Holmstrom, a court-appointed Duluth
lawyer, and on state murder charges by Duluth public defenders
Rodney Brodin and Joanne Piper-Maurer.
How does a lawyer defend such a client? And at what price? In
these cases, by all accounts, defense lawyers provided skilled
and zealous advocacy in the face of strong evidence and intense
pressures. Does a lawyer need to believe in a client's innocence
to undertake such advocacy? Lawyers know the answer is no. They
also know that the answer comes from the intellect, not from
emotion, and that it is not universally understood and accepted.
A lawyer must suspend belief and emotion, and accept the legal
presumption of innocence. For the defender, this is an abstract
cause. The trial is as likely to bring public vilification as
recognition, and as likely to bring private pain as satisfaction.
A defender performs a job that is as essential to justice as
that of the prosecutor, the judge, or the juror. We can accept
with confidence the outcome of a trial, and morally punish a
criminal, only if the outcome is the product of an adversary
proceeding in which the defendant was presumed innocent, properly
represented, and proved guilty. Many defendants are not proved
guilty. The defender who asserts a client's innocence and challenges
the prosecutor's case should not be viewed as standing in the
way of justice, but as one of the players in the best search
for justice we have been able to devise.
So we be written in the Book of Love. |
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