The Pelican Journal

[vikingsiddhu]

Hey, I and eight others are setting up an online journal called the Pelican Journal. We are going to try to commentate about Philosophy, Opinion, Ethics, whatnot.

Our question this week is:
THEME: ETHICAL QUANDARY

You are a confused lawyer as your
client, Nolan Strothman, has just confessed to
you, saying that he is the one who killed Alvaro
Liptrot. That’s rather odd since Bryon Viener is on
death row (has been for twelve years) for the mur-
der of Liptrot.

Now you would like to bring this
innocent man out of jail, and thus out of a lethal
injection that he does not deserve. However, you
are bound by attorney-client confidentiality to not
discuss your client’s confessions unless he would like
you to. Of course, your client decides that he does
not want to go to jail, and therefore chooses to ban
you from telling the courts that Viener is innocent.
This is your moral dilemma: You can do
what is legally correct and stay silent. Doing so,
however, would allow for a grave miscarriage of
justice: an innocent man will have been executed.
On the other hand, you can break privilege to get
the courts to try to save Viener. If you stay silent,
your career will be preserved...................

................if you speak, the Bar association will make sure that you
never take another case to court. Moreso, you are not sure if the courts will
allow your testimony of the confession to save Viener. After all, you can’t
even testify on this. All the same, you can get them to note that Viener may
be innocent, and delay his execution.

Who knows? They might find some evidence showing he is
innocent. You should at least try, right? So what would you do? What
is justifiable? What is legal? Would you break the sanctity of a
fundemental confidence to potentially save the life of an
innocent man?
Why? What consequences arise? What would this
mean to the system of law, and the system of morality? Must we sometimes
abandon the literal meaning to indeed save the principle behind it?

Since this will be our first publication, we do encourage others to join in. I apologize for the time scale, but we intend to publish our first journal at October 28th or 29th. This journal btw will be published weekly from now on.

If any of you would like to participate in it, please email me at pelicanjournal@gmail.com.
If not, but you are still interested in topic, post here, and lets share our revelations.

Thanks a lot, and btw, any articles are greatly appreciated.

[vikingsiddhu]

Sorry for the double I know I can edit, but to emphasize point, I think I should say that I posted in wrong forum. Please move to ethics forum. Thanks.

[Maverick]

Would you break the sanctity of a
fundemental confidence to potentially save the life of an
innocent man?

That's just jibberish to me.

Where's the dilemma? On one side you have a moral imperative, on the other... some words on a dusty tome somewhere.

I don't know that someone who questions whether or not to save an innocent man and at the same time take a killer off the streets is really moral enough to have a moral dilemma.

I mean, would anyone with a moral conscience really have to weigh the pluses and minuses before deciding what to do in this scenario?

Really any question of morals when dealing with defense attorneys is a bit suspicious to me. How can anyone in good conscience lie to people and manipulate the system of justice every day? I know a couple obscure lines "to the best of your abilities" or whatnot wouldn't justify most defenses in my mind.

So no, a question of "lawyer ethics" wouldn't stop me from doing the right thing.

[vikingsiddhu]

Well, you have to consider the fact that if the confidence is destroyed, other innocent people may lack trust in future attorneys, and thus contribute to the innocent convictions of the future.

[Chlodwig I.]

Wait
why should a innocent person loose his trust into a lawyer because a lawyer helped (by breaking this lawyer client thing) saving a innocent from beeing executed.


What has higher priority the life of a innocent man or the right of a murderer to be not brought to justice?



But the question should be how can a innocent man be send to his execution for a murder he hasn't done?
What was wrong with his lawyer?
Who faked the "Real" proof?
or can someone be send to his execution yust out of evidence but without real proof?

Is some strange evidence and a worse atorny of state(one who is more intrested in winning a case then in bringing the correct person to justice) enough to send someone to his execution in your legal system?

[vikingsiddhu]

Chlodwig I,

What is innocence? At the moment, clients feel free (to some extent admittedly) to say the order of events in that day of crime. Lets say that everyone purports innocence and refuses to say what happened. Can lawyers defend their clients then?

All the same, I am just playing the devil's advocate.

[Chlodwig I.]

If they are Innocent they can tell thier lawyer everything concerning that special crime they are sued for.

If they only claim to be innocent then they could only tell the lawyer lies that won't help to defend them.

But maybe its just that you got a strange and for me very sick judical system in the country you live in.

[vikingsiddhu]

Then we're playing with fire, and no longer persuming people are innocent before . While we do not have a perfect system, I would far prefer this one to a sick system that deprives the rights of the defendant, and claims that if they were innocent....
Its like going back to Russia, or, now Guatalma and determining that these people are guilty because they cannot purport their innocence.
I admit that I am merely playing as a devil's advocate; our justice system after all could improve tremendously.

[Chlodwig I.]

? Who questions the right to not confese against yourself?

If you are accused of murder an it was selfdefence or manslaughter you are not guilty of murder so you are innocent of this special crime

But your question was about not telling that someone is innocent
because someone confessed the murder to you but some strange oath prevents you from telling it.

Hell this guy is a murderer so yeah maybe it was only selfdefence or manslaughter but that has the court to decide.

Letting a Innocent person be executed to prevent that a murderer from beeing brought to justice is a crime in my opinion.

You help a murderer from not beeing brought to court to judge over his crimes and in addition you let a innocent man be murdered.