Respectfully, I realize I could have Googled and found something about the matter, but I don't want to take a pick. I want to read the one you read to ensure we both have the same information in that regard.
I posted one of them in #128. Here it is again.
Exclusive: ‘Hillary Clinton Took Me Through Hell,’ Rape Victim Says
Having read the article to which you provided the link, I have determined that the central question is one not of what Mrs. Clinton did or said, but rather one of ethics. I don't have a problem with Mrs. Clinton's efforts to effect the best possible outcome she could, ideally a not guilty verdict, for her client.
In the process of examining the ethical dilemma associated with the (not new) matter of how lawyers can bring themselves to defend folks like the accused rapist Mrs. Clinton did, I came across the following information that you may find useful in developing a more comprehensive understanding and view of the matter and considerations involved.
I realize the plaintiff claims that Mrs. Clinton lied in order to obtain the results she sought on behalf of her client, but one must realize that the accusation is also that Mrs. Clinton lied to the court. Were that in fact true, or believed by the court, or Arkansas' Attorney General, or the plaintiff's attorney(s), to be plausibly true, and investigation would have ensued, and
Mrs. Clinton could have been disbarred for doing so. Indeed, perjury is a possible outcome. None of those things happened; she was not only not disbarred, and not charged with perjury, but also not censured, or anything else, aside from having to endure the accusations that have of late surfaced, in connection with that trial.
I also happen to think the plaintiff in that case is today being used as a pawn in the effort to smear Mrs. Clinton's reputation. I think that in part because of what was presented in the article you referenced.
[T]he victim now claims she was misquoted. She didn’t even know Clinton was the lawyer who defended her attacker until Thrush showed her Clinton’s book and she had no other information about what had happened behind closed doors in that courtroom when Thrush approached her, she said. Thrush declined to comment.
After [the plaintiff in the rape case] was released from prison in 2008, [she] read more about Clinton’s involvement in her case, but she never planned to confront Clinton about it.
The article you referenced states that:
[A]fter hearing the newly revealed tapes of Clinton boasting about the case, the victim said she couldn’t hold her tongue any longer and wanted to tell her side of the story to the public.
“When I heard that tape I was pretty upset, I went back to the room and was talking to my two cousins and I cried a little bit. I ain’t gonna lie, some of this has got me pretty down,” she said. “But I thought to myself, ‘I’m going to stand up to her. I’m going to stand up for what I’ve got to stand up for, you know?”
Well, I listened to the tape. Mrs. Clinton hardly sounds boastful. In fact it seems pretty clear to me that what she was laughing about was the perfunctory handling the forensics team exercised with a critical piece of evidence in a rape trial. I think the humor expressed in Mrs. Clinton's chuckles is not of the jocular sort, but rather of the bittersweet variety. Mrs. Clinton's other remarks in the interview do not at all suggest she gloated with glee over the outcome. In total, it appears that Mrs. Clinton realized the opportunity before her and, on behalf of her client, availed herself of it.
That's a lengthy post and I won't try to go line by line responding but Clinton provided no evidence that the victim had a history of either fantasizing about older men or accusing men of attacking her body.
She stated it was brought to her attention or something like that, yet she didn't provide any witnesses to back it up. If that was a lie, how would you prove it was, especially if you're 12 years old? .
As far as her defending someone she admittedly knew was guilty, it's not illegal for her to do that but there are more ethical attorneys who won't submit a not guilty plea but will instead try to make a deal for leniency.
You can
excuse Hillary based on legal technicalities but the fact still remains that
she put the victim on trial and accused her of inviting the crime or lying about it when she knew her client was guilty. It may be legal but it is unethical and I think you know that.
Red:
Since the case never got to the point of a jury hearing arguments from both sides -- the defendant pled guilty to "unlawful fondling of a child under the age of 14" -- neither the prosecutor nor Mrs. Clinton, the defense attorney of record, were required to produce any evidence -- physical, anecdotal, witness testimony, etc. -- that the statements in the affidavits were true. There was not a jury trial, so when exactly was either attorney or named party in the case going to provide "whatever" to "back up" the averments in the affidavits?
Mrs. Clinton's remarks as summarized in the article you cited were:
"I have also been informed that she has in the past made false accusations about persons, claiming they had attacked her body. Also that she exhibits an unusual stubbornness and temper when she does not get her way.”
The specific statements Mrs. Clinton made are found on an
affidavit included among the court documents pertaining to the case of
State of Arkansas v. Thomas Alfred Taylor. If you look at those documents, you'll also find the prosecutor also submitted an affidavit of the same basic nature -- that is, personal attestations of what the affiant believes to be true. The article to which you pointed me contains the link to those documents.
Note:
(In my earlier remarks, I used the term "plaintiff" with reference to the person who was raped. Having not cited the case name, I will from this point forward refer to her as the victim or alleged victim.)
Blue:
Before offering a response to your blue-highlighted remarks, I must ask you a question.
Do you agree that all defendants are entitled to the best defence available, and if so, of what should this consist? Should a defense attorney for a rapist work less diligently to obtain an acquittal than should a defence attorney of another alleged criminal who is accused of a non-rape crime?
It is standard defence practice in any criminal trial to try to point up inconsistencies in a witness's evidence. All the barristers would routinely do this. In rape cases such inconsistencies are highlighted to suggest that the complainant may have lied on the issue of consent. Comparisons were routinely made between what the complainant said by way of recent complaint and what she said subsequently to others when describing what had happened to her.
The strategies and tactics used by defense attorneys in rape cases undoubtedly raise ethical issues. The ethics of advocacy has been the subject of academic analysis, some of which I
provided in the last post I made in this conversation between you and me. I earlier suggested you read them because I thought doing so would help you obtain a fuller understanding of the ethical dilemma associated with defending people whom an attorney believes/knows to be guilty. Remember, the defendant is the one who claims to be either guilty or not guilty, not the defendant's attorney.
Defence and prosecution counsel do not devise utterly new forensic methods for every trial. They, like professionals, rely on standard tactics and approached for achieving their respective objectives. Rape cases are, I suspect, no exception. Why this boilerplate, as it were, approach to legal representation? I don't specifically know, but I do know that methodologies that have a track record of working to some extent will get used routinely, and I suspect without exception when one isn't well heeled as was, say, O.J. Simpson, or when a "deep pockets, white knight" hasn't seen fit to champion one's cause. It may be that constraints of time and money operate to encourage a system in which events are reconstructed into a limited range of stories (for example, victim as foolish young woman, 'tart', or exponent of 'alternative' lifestyle, who either consented or who has only herself to blame for what happened to her) rather than fresh approaches being taken.
In a criminal trial, the defendant is pitched against the state. He stands to lose his liberty and perhaps his reputation, his family, and his friends. Imprisonment is likely to involve considerable hardship, which might also include subjection to violence and sexual assault. In these circumstances, it is incumbent upon the advocate to do his utmost to see that the client's defence is presented as strongly as possible.
Under the role of law, a person has to be proved guilty of the offence with which he is charged. He must be proved, in exact accordance with the rules of evidence and procedure, to come within the four comers of that offence and proof must be beyond reasonable doubt. By the very nature of the role of law, advocates are daily placed in situations in which they are defending to the hilt persons whom they know are, at the very least, a menace and often a positive danger to the community. In so doing, they are, paradoxically, defending the interests of the community by upholding the role of law.
So, despite what it may seem like, I don't at all accept or ascribe to the idea you've presented that says a defense attorney who, to the fullest of his/her ability, makes every possible effort to obtain an acquittal, no matter the allegation(s), is acting unethically by doing so. Indeed, I see such attorney's failing to "give it their all" as a greater wrong than one victim's reputation being sullied by any of the tactics (tactics that don't rise to the level of deliberate attempts to mislead the court) a defense attorney may employ. It's a matter of the importance of one person's character, be they a minor or not, versus setting a precedent for the diminishment of the role of law in our society, something that goes well beyond affecting just one person.
Other:
Ethical dilemmas similar to the one at hand are not unique to attorneys.
- Imagine that the only emergency room (ER) surgeon at a given point in time witnessed a gunman in the ER shoot one or several of his colleagues in the ER before being shot by one of the security guards. What is the surgeon to do? Mend the shooter's wounds? Let him bleed out or die of something related to having been shot?
- Imagine a priest who hears a penitent's confession to one or more louche and criminal, deeds. Although the confession happens in an "old school" confessional, the priest recognizes the sinner's voice and knows quite well who it is. As the penitent's confessor, the priest cannot violate the sanctity of the confessional. What is the cleric to do? The most he can do is encourage the individual to turn themselves in.
