Ethical Behavior in Criminal Justice
Situation 2
You are a legislator who believes absolutely and strongly that abortion is a sin. You have polled your constituents and are surprised to find that the majority does not believe that the government should legislate the private decision of a woman to have an abortion. Should you vote your conscience or the will of the majority of your constituents?
A. As a legislator who believes that abortion is a mortal sin, the personal take on the moral arguments of abortion is an important part of my personal values. However, one moral standpoint may not be the same to the other, given that each and every person also has their own personal perspective toward issues concerning moral values. As argued by LaFollette and LaFollette (2007), not all conscience is created equal. Therefore, on the issue of the government intervening with women in terms of upholding the decision to have an abortion, I will still stand by my moral argument that it is not acceptable and should be prevented. If I opposes the idea of abortion as a fundamental right reserve to women and that of my constituents, that doesn’t mean I am not responsible for the consequences of the people’s actions. This is because whether or not abortion should be banned or legalized the consequences are inevitable, there would still be women who will go on their way to have an abortion and endanger themselves to risks involved in the process. In the end, the public would still point fingers to the government for not taking any measures to prevent the loss of life. Therefore, in order to minimize the economic, political, and social effect of the consequences attributed to abortion, it is still apparent that preventive measures should be put in place such as legislations to prevent further damages to the public.
Situation 3
You are completing an internship at a defense attorney’s office during your senior year in college. After graduation you plan to enter law school and pursue a career as an attorney, although you have not yet decided what type of law to practice. Your duties as an intern are to assist the private practitioner you work for in a variety of tasks, including interviewing clients and witnesses, organizing case files, running errands, and photocopying. A case that you are helping with involves a defendant charged with armed robbery. One day while you are at the office alone, the defendant comes in and gives you a package for the attorney. In it you find a gun. You believe, but do not know for a fact, that the gun is the one used in the armed robbery. When the attorney returns, he instructs you to return the package to the defendant. What should you do? What should the attorney do? Do you want to know what your boss doesn't want to know?
A. It is reasonable to return the gun to the defendant because lawyers are not supposed to handle evidence and the possession and or concealment of evidence is a violation of ethical conduct for lawyers. No attorney should ever place himself in a situation where the authorities were able to trace the instrumentalities of the crime whether or not the attorney purposely conceals the vital evidence to prevent prosecution of the client (Uphoff, 2011). Similarly, the case of Richard Ryder in 1966 (In Re Ry- der, 263 F. Supp. 360, 362 as cited in Uphoff, 2011) that is a defense attorney broke the rules of engagement of his law profession by safe keeping the money and the shot gun used by his client in an armed robbery. In the given scenario where the lawyer’s client sending the gun to the attorney, which was allegedly used as the instrument of the crime, the attorney should refer to the Criminal Justice Standard 4-4.6 for guidance on how to handle the alleged evidence. However, lawyers are constantly in a battle between ethical rules, ethical norms, and case law. Criminal defense lawyers have an obligation of competency, loyalty, and confidentiality towards their clients. On the other hand, lawyers are also expected to act in accordance to the preamble of Model Rules of Professional conduct wherein, lawyers are bound to the rules of law (Uphoff, 2011). Given that statement, I would say I would not want to know what my boss doesn’t want me to know. This is because primarily I am not the attorney representing the client and that the information shared by the client to the lawyer should remain between them. I have no legal rights to know the details of the case and is not authorized by the law to handle such information.
Situation 4
You are a prosecutor with the unwelcome task of prosecuting a 12-year-old for a particularly brutal assault. You personally believe that the child basically went along with his older brother in the assault, and you think that he should have been left in the juvenile system. However, the juvenile court judge waived him to the adult system, and the media and the victim’s family are demanding that he be tried as an adult. You have to decide whether to try him for attempted murder, assault, or some lesser crime. You could deny the waiver and send the case back to juvenile court. What will you do? How do you determine your duty? Is it to the victims, to society, or to your own conscience?
A. The U.S. Supreme Court already ruled that capital punishment is unconstitutional or any person who has not yet celebrated their 16th birthday (Reaves, 2001). As the prosecutor for the case, I would not recommend the 12-year old to be tried in an adult Court for two reasons. One is that juveniles lack the moral and intellectual capacity to understand the consequences of their action. In addition, given the benefit of the doubt that the accused did not intentionally went on his own will to commit the crime, but was just influenced by a far more mature companion, there is a probability that the accused was not the primary perpetrator, but rather a victim of the consequences. As the prosecutor, I will send the child back to the juvenile Court because as prosecutor I have the power to exercise prosecutorial discretion as stipulated in standard prosecutorial guidelines. In addition, the Juvenile Division Policy Manual states four criteria for reconsideration namely, age, prior record, current offense, and prior treatment of efforts in the juvenile system (Thomas and Bilchik, 1985). The accused meets the criteria on age, current offense, but not clear on prior record and prior juvenile treatment efforts. If the case is brutal assault, it is not a ground for the case to be carried into an adult Court. Secondly, the case was filed as assault and not of far more grave crime such as murder or homicide. Lastly, it should be established first that the accused had prior criminal record or had been at some point admitted to a juvenile institution before considering the child for an adult trial. The decision does not involve moral consideration, or obligation to the society or any person for that effect. The decision to bring the case back to the juvenile Court was based on what the constitution recommends about the case and as a prosecutor, I have the highest obligation to abide by the rule of law.
References
LaFollette, E., & LaFollette, H. (2007). Private conscience, public acts. J Med Ethics,33(5), 249-254. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2598118/
Reaves, J. (2001, May 17). Should the law treat Kkids and adults differently? - TIME. Retrieved June 6, 2014, from http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,110232,00.html
Thomas, C. W., & Bilchik, S. (1985). Prosecuting juveniles in criminal courts: A legal and empirical analysis. The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 76(2), 439-479.
Uphoff, R. J. (2011). handling physical evidence: Guidance found in ABA Standard 4-4.6.Criminal Justice, 26(2), 1-15. Retrieved from http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/publications/criminal_justice_magazine/cjsu11_uphoff.authcheckdam.pdf
