[quote=Blogstar]Defense attorneys don’t fabricate on behalf of their clients? Parade a bunch of liars through the court. People who they put together for some bullshit Con whether the result is possibly to revictimize actual victims and society at large? Maybe get some scumbag off who killed plenty of times, who killed maimed and in other ways traumatized people? Yeah they do and sometimes they get the tax payer to pick up the tab for most of it or all of it too.[/quote]
Prosecutors and Defense attorneys almost never know what actually happened, because they a re not witnesses. They put on witnesses and make arguments to try to prove a theory. Neither the statements of prosecutors nor defense attorneys are evidence. theya re simply what they expect the evidence to show. It is up to the judge or jury to determine what the evidence means, what weight to give it, and what the truth is.
The correct outcome doesnt always occur, but it is not expected to be perfect. The system is set up to maximize letting innocent people go by establishing a high burden of proof …proof beyond a reasonable doubt…that’s our ssystem when it works correctly.
Stating a prosecution or defense theory that is not true is not lying, because the truth is almost never known to either side. In that sense, one side is “lying” in every trial where different theories of the facts are presented, since often both stories cannot be true. That doesn’t undermine the purpose of the system; in fact, that is the purpose of the system..to see if the evidence supports the charges, or if there is some reasonable alternative explanation that creates doubt about the truth of the charge. We expect one side’s story to not hold up after careful examination.
When the police interview witnesses, they are in a similar position to prosecutors or defense attorneys. They don’t know what the truth is. They are simply gathering in a critically examining manner evidence to be later considered in the context of the whole.
However, in other situations, the police are direct witnesses. In that case the police ACTUALLY DO know what happened.
When police make stuff up, it is bad. It is bad in a way that is utterly different than presenting an incorrect prosecution or defense theory to a jury, which as noted above, is normal. Because police hold a position of high regard in society, because jurors and judges trust them, when they fabricate evidence, it is highly likely it will be believed to be true, and that the outcome may therefore be very, very wrong, because innocent people might get convicted.
Alternatively, if that trust in police decayed over time, say by videotapes proving bold lies, and people started doubting everything the police said, it would also be terrible, because we as a society want jurors to be able to trust police, because that trust is necessary to enforcing laws and getting convictions of the guilty.
