How does attorney-client privilege work? And how is it not perjury to defend the innocence of someone who admitted their guilt to you?
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Prosecutors and defense attorneys have very different functions in our system of justice. It’s not just each side trying to prove their case.
Our system of justice is set up to only punish people for crimes if their crime can be proven to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. In this system, the defense attorney isn’t there to prove their client innocent. They’re there to ensure that if doubt exists about the prosecutor’s case, the jury hears it. This (in theory) ensures the same bar is met for every person accused of a crime. It also means that defense attorneys don’t have to make claims (lie) about their client’s innocence in the first place.
Yes, this means that some people who committed a crime don’t get punished for it, but it also means that we don’t have “short cuts” to convict people of crimes even if the prosecutor’s case is weak, because that’s how you end up with innocent people in jail in the best case, and a whole mess of politically-motivated convictions in the worst case.
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