How Low Will Some Defence Lawyers Sink In An Effort To Defend Their Clients?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2539093/Madeleine-McCanns-parents-guilty-child-neglect-says-lawyer-bizarre-courtroom-speech.html

/// A lawyer defending a woman who was caught drink-driving while her small child was at home alone has accused Madeleine McCann's parents of child neglect. ///

/// He told magistrates at Merthyr Tydfil, south Wales: 'The parents of Madeleine McCann were guilty of child neglect for leaving their little girl much longer than my client. They were never prosecuted.' ///

[Cloverjo]

It's disgusting to bring the McCanns into this. I hate all the nastiness they've had thrown at them over the years. They made a mistake and are paying for it by living with the worst nightmare a parent could go through. Time to give them a break, surely.

[Gromit]

It is there job to defend clients to the best pf their ability.

The McCanns left their child for much longer while they were getting p*ssed.

Are you disputing that fact.

Or is that people that you have decided are guilty do not deserve a trial and you would go straight to convicting them?

[jno]

sounds like a fair question, though. How long is too long when it comes to leaving children? Is there some rule?

[Prudie]

Agree it's a totally fair question. Defence lawyers will sink as low as they need to defend - even when they know their client is guilty. They may have personal misgivings but at the end of the day it's their job.

[sandyRoe]

Is it much of a defence to say, 'Others got away with worse, why can't my client get off, too?'

[naomi24]

I can’t see how they could have been prosecuted in a British Court of Law. Their ‘crime’ – if it was a crime - was committed abroad so outside the jurisdiction of the law of this country, surely?

[ToraToraTora]

Lawers don't have to sink at all, you cannot sink when you are already on the bottom.

[andy-hughes]

I think the McCanns are guilty of child neglect.

That does not mean it is appropriate to bring their story into another case.

However, i do not think it is 'sinking' for a defence lawyer to use whatever means they think will work to defend their clients. it is for the court to decide if it agrees with the comparison or not.

[New Judge]

Absolutely agree (for once!) Gromit, with your remarks about the McCanns. Whilst they didn’t deserve to lose their child the inescapable fact is that they left her alone in a strange bed in a strange house and went out for a meal. Their contention that it was no different to them being at the bottom of their garden was inappropriate (just look at the reports to find out why). Had Mrs McCann been a single mother who popped out from her council flat to the cash machine (as this woman apparently did) Social Services would have become involved and she would have - quite deservedly - received precisely nil sympathy.

As for this incident, it is the defence counsel’s job to put into context the circumstances of his client’s offending. He obviously saw fit to compare it with something that Their Worships could readily recognise so that’s what he did.

[Ken4155]

The defence lawyer was only expressing what quite a lot of people believe and was only trying to make a point. And i don't suppose he ever thought that his comments would be plastered all over the national press.

[ladybirder]

Is checking on your children every half an hour really child neglect? And they went out to eat, not to get pissed.

[New Judge]

Oh, and her advocate's remarks were made in mitigation, not to suggest that since others have done the same or worse so she should be be excused. She pleaded guilty to all the offences as charged.

[sandyRoe]

If I were on the bench and people who had suffered a great loss were being traduced in mitigation I'm not sure the speech would fall on a sympathetic ear.

[andy-hughes]

ladybirder - "Is checking on your children every half an hour really child neglect?"

No it's not.

Leaving your children in an unlocked ground floor room in a foreign country so you can go to eat dinner is child neglect.

I have three daughters. At the ages when they were too young to be left alone anywhere, on holiday or not, either they came out with us when appropriate, and if not, one or other or both of us stayed in.

Part of deal you make with your children when you have them is that you will protect them and keep them safe. If that means you cannot leave them alone while you go to a restaurant, then that's the end of the evening out.

I really can't see that there is any argument there..

[New Judge]

"Is checking on your children every half an hour really child neglect?"

I would suggest it is, ladybirder. They were in a strange bed, in a strange house in a foreign country. To do so when they were in their own home would be a bit questionable to say the least. The defence advocate’s very point was that his client had left her child for far less time but had been charged with - and admitted - child neglect.

[pixie373]

I don't think there's any doubt the McCanns were guilty of neglect. With other crimes, it depends on the outcome rather than the actions, so the McCanns were worse. Much as i understand how much they have paid for it, i feel more sorry for their daughter.

[anotheoldgit]

When I chose to post this thread I was in no way defending the McCanns for what they did, which personally I tend to agree with those who classed it as neglect, and the fact that if they had been 'ordinary' parents leaving their children alone in a foreign country they would have been treated much more differently.

What I didn't care for was the fact that the Lawyer chose to use this couple's very sad loss to some how defend this alleged drunken driver, in my opinion there just was no need to do so.

[Baldric]

Inappropriate use of the facts certainly,
but an element of truth none the less imo.

[jno]

he wasn't defending her in this instance on charges of drink driving (technically, as New Judge says, he wasn't "defending" her at all), but on charges of child neglect, so the comparison with other apparently neglectful parents seems a fair one to me.

[New Judge]

I think he was using the comparison in mitigation to the child neglect charge, AOG. Of course comparison to the McCann’s case has nothing to do with the drink-driving charge.

Such a topic as the McCann case is always likely to be emotive. However, the job of a defence advocate is to make clear in the Magistrates’ minds exactly what has been alleged and to put that allegation into context. Because of the extensive coverage it received most people have some idea what the McCann case involves and I believe it is reasonable to make such a comparison.