Defense attorneys have an ethical obligation to jealously represent all clients, including those who believe they will be justly found guilty, as well as those who believe they are innocent from the point of view of the facts. Another reason that lawyers can defend people regardless of their culpability is that our society gives every citizen the right to be vigorously defended in a court of law. The Constitution guarantees all citizens due process and the right to an attorney. Professionally speaking, a criminal lawyer is not morally committed to what a child abuser does.
But if we bring the theory of amorality to these transnational fields, we can no longer sustain it in a coherent way, because the conditions that sustain amorality simply don't exist. In general, defense attorneys can ask the judge to leave their client. However, almost every defense attorney would be left with an at-fault client. He seems to assume that justice will be done if the defense attorney leaves his client, but the truth is quite the opposite.
Justice is when everyone is treated fairly and gets a fair trial. If the defendant does not have an attorney, he may be sentenced more harshly than other people who committed the same crime because he does a very poor job representing himself. In addition, if you don't have an attorney who can file objections when due process is not followed, the court could end up violating your rights. That is not justice either, and could lead to a new trial if the errors were later discovered.
Defense attorneys make sure that the system convicts people the right way. Without defense attorneys, prosecutors only throw complicated words at baffled people and then put them in prison. They are not, because it is not the lawyer as a person who is helping this alleged child abuser. Instead, the defense attorney will focus his tactics and arguments at trial on the fact that the government has not been able to prove all the elements of the crime.
Something clearly immoral from a personal perspective — such as withholding information obtained from a criminal — can be justified from a lawyer's point of view. If you are suspected or charged with a crime, contact a criminal lawyer as soon as possible. Defendants who have committed the act that forms the basis of their criminal accusation often wonder if they should tell their lawyers. The information provided on this site does not constitute legal advice, does not constitute an attorney referral service, and no confidential attorney-client relationship is established or will be formed through the use of the site.
Once again, given the attorney-client privilege, the defense is also under no obligation to submit any evidence of guilt to the prosecution. A vigorous defense is necessary to protect the innocent and to ensure that judges and citizens, and not the police, have the ultimate power to decide who is guilty of a crime. Or, when the public discovers that a person was guilty and their lawyer knew it from the start and still vigorously defended them, the reaction is usually negative. At no time will the defense attorney be asked if your client committed the crime, so that he is not obliged to lie.
It's a wonderful principle of American jurisprudence that people accused of criminal or civil culpability are innocent until proven guilty, and blood has been shed for centuries to make that rule prevail in the free world. When lawyers work in negotiations involving several countries, they may be increasingly beyond the reach of any identifiable rule of law system. According to Canon 7 of the ABA Model Code of Responsibility, the duty of a defense attorney to his client is to represent him jealously within the limits of the law, due to his inclusion in a profession whose purpose is (to help) members of the public to ensure and protect available legal rights and benefits. Or, the defendant may be guilty, but of a different and lesser crime than the one being prosecuted by the district attorney.
The reason most criminal defense attorneys won't ask you if you're really guilty is because it's not relevant to the case...
