Mark O'Mara is new Zimmerman Defense Lawyer

[jberryhill]

49. I have no illusions about how courts and lawyers function

I am a lawyer.

You seem to believe that a defense attorney cannot in good faith represent a client he knows to be guilty.

That is simply not true.

I do not do criminal defense work, but if I had a client who came to me charged with a crime and told me he did it, then the question for me is "Can the state prove it?"

There is NO requirement that the defense provide any alternative explanation of what happened. The burden is on the state to prove its case at all time.

If I can raise doubts about the credibility or trustworthiness of the state's evidence or the state's witnesses, then the jury has to acquit.

And we do it this way in our system because we value something greater than whether any particular guilty person is convicted or not - and that precisely is JUSTICE - the only thing that stands between us and a totalitarian state. It's not subject to passion, outrage or results. It is enshrined in the Bill of Rights, without which guarantees our Constitution would not have been ratified; these rights were that important.

EVERY person - EVERY GODDAMNED PERSON CHARGED WITH A CRIME - is ENTITLED to be informed of the charge of against him or her, to have compulsory process for obtaining evidence and witnesses, to confront his or her accuser, to have assistance of counsel, not to be compelled to testify against him or herself and a whole raft of things and their consequences which are FAR MORE IMPORTANT THAN WHETHER GEORGE ZIMMERMAN IS CONVICTED. It is what defines the greatness of our system of government as conceived, give or take implementation problems and social circumstances that keep us from accomplishing that ideal. But, over the long run, we get better at it.