The Threat of a Lawyer's Priorities

Lawyers have mixed up priorities.

Let me explain what I mean by this. If a criminal confesses, his lawyer is obligated to keep it secret, and even lie about it! Why? Because his first duty is to protecting his client from the law, and his second duty is to society. However, if these priorities were to be followed to their logical conclusion, the lawyer should be obligated to murder key witnesses! Why doesn't he? Because his first duty is to society and his second duty is to protecting his client from the law. Lawyers apply different priorities to different situations.

Lawyers need to decide where their duty lies and stick with it. "But how would this affect the justice system?" you might ask. To be sure, the justice system does need lawyers to protect their clients from the law, but there is a limit to how far they should go. Their goal should be to protect their client from punishment that they believe is undue. They should seek truth with a bias, but they should not stop seeking truth because of it. They should not lie to the court or cover up evidence (so, as another example, they should not advise their client to say nothing, in order to cover up the truth).

Now, to answer the question, the way the justice system works now is that bias is theoretically eliminated by having bias in both directions. However, these mixed up priorities prove that that system is a little perverted. However, the solution to this problem is not necessarily to eliminate the bias, but to remove the bias from dealings with the accused party and witnesses outside of court. The role of a lawyer should be not to scheme, but merely to come up with ideas. The one who actually engages in finding witnesses and talking to and advising the accused party should be someone like a judge, one who does not care who wins. However, this is not to say that the lawyer and prosecution should not be a part of those processes. They could advise this person. To clarify, from the moment the accused party is arrested, the actions of both the prosecution and defense should be limited and controlled, and the prosecution and detectives should not have contact. And, to be fair, the person in this new role should also have the power to decide what evidence and which witnesses are brought to court. Some of the information gleaned by this person may make the accused party look bad in an unfair way.

"But if my lawyer has less control, he will be able to do less for me" you might say. However, you are not supposed to look to the justice system for help, you are supposed to look to the justice system for justice. It is comforting to know that someone powerful is on your side, but that is the kind of comfort that only children need. Also, people do not have the right to help or legal council, they have the right to justice and the fair pursuit of truth. This idea would actually help to protect the rights of an accused person.