[CheesecakeFred]

He was describing the ideal attorney. If you factor in human failure in your ideals from the start, what you get is the lowest common multiple, so you limit any aspiration and potential from the start.

No, the ideal would be an attorney that can almost perfectly differentiate between his emotions plus opinion against true justice.

[TheOtherHobbes]

Defence attorneys may not know if someone is guilty. Some clients may say "Yes, I did it, get me out of here" but some won't - possibly because they didn't.

Clients may be implicated by false confessions extracted under pressure. They may even believe those confessions, because hours of stressful interrogation can confuse people with limited ego strength.

There may be some other narratives, other circumstances, complex family or business relationships which are a relevant back story to the crime, and/or may incriminate someone else - and so on.

There are exceptions - including lawyers who specialise in defending organised crime, and are really just covert employees of criminal organisations.

But generally, it's just plain incorrect to assume that defence attorneys invariably know their client is guilty and are really just trying to cover that up.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

I had a friend who worked for 15 years as a public defender. I asked her how she dealt with cases where it was completely obvious that her client was guilty. Her answer (paraphrased): we have a system of justice that requires that there is a process to locking someone up, or even just fining them. That process needs to be followed all the time, whether the person is "obviously guilty" or not. My job in those cases was to make sure that the prosecution, and the court system, dotted all their i's, crossed all their t's before rendering a judgement on my client. I wasn't trying to keep them out of prison, I was trying to make sure that only people who deserve to be there actually end up there.