COLUMN: The judicial system's ethics

From Davina Figeroux's, "Say It Ain't So," Fall '97 From Davina Figeroux's, "Say It Ain't So," Fall '97 Every month or so, I have the same conversation but with a different person. I say I'm a Sociology and Women's Studies major. They ask what I intend to do with that. I say law school. They rant and rave about how ruthless and unscrupulous lawyers are and why do I want to be a lawyer and there are too many lawyers and don't you know there are more people in law school than there are lawyers in this country? Not until the 1960s were the accused even legally entitled to any counsel. Before that, the poor usually went without any representation, unless they were involved in a capital trial. Now, the government provides for public defenders, who usually do not have the verve, time or monetary incentive to defend the accused as well as big money lawyers. Taking the much talked about O.J. Simpson case as an example, many people believe that without his very powerful team of lawyers, he might be in jail today. I don't know if that is true or not but there is no doubt that the guilty can go free with the proper defense, usually provided by the proper price. Or, even assuming he's innocent, look at how much money he was required to shell out for a good defense, surely less than the average defendant can afford. I was recently told by a lawyer to "forget about ethics. You'll never make it as a lawyer if you think about ethics." I was taken aback by this comment and it forced me to really think. If the lawyer who said this was right, I really had to re-evaluate my career path. Now that several of my senior friends are in the process of completing law school applications, I realize how close I am to that process as well. It is almost at the point where I, too, should have a pretty good idea of what I want to do and why I want to do it. But up until that moment, the various anti-lawyer jokes and comments that I've heard throughout my life were just stereotypes, in the same way that people assume black people can dance or that Irish people are alcoholics. But now that a lawyer has said it, it carried a great deal of weight. Also according to this attorney, law in the United States is not about justice, it's about order and procedure. This is definitely true. Now, I don't believe everything I see on television or in the movies, however I think the portrayal of justice is fairly accurate. For example, the use of plea bargaining in some cases. Almost every show or movie I watch which includes a trial involves an attempt at plea bargaining. It just so happens that, in this country, many cases never make it to trial because of plea bargaining, which, no matter what, is a loss. If you're guilty, you get away with your crime and are charged with something less severe than what you should have been. If you're innocent and choose to plea bargain, you receive a punishment for no reason. And, believe it or not, there have been a great deal of cases in which innocent people plea bargain for fear of losing the trial, which may carry a much more serious punishment, like death. Plea bargaining clearly has nothing to do with justice. Either way, a wrong is committed and some lawyer gets to chalk it up as another win. This is undoubtedly scandalous. But regardless, I still intend to pursue law, since I cannot believe that every lawyer is without ethical principles. And if I'm wrong, then I guess I'll be a pioneer in a system that so far, appears to be like a game. To master it, you must know the most tricks and know how to cheat without getting caught. I'm not saying that no lawyers have ethics, because that can't be true. It just appears as though money and prestige often precede morals in a society where manipulation of the system does not seem all that impossible.