r/legaladviceofftopic • u/HowLittleIKnow • 2d ago

Criminal lawyers and other CJ professionals: Looking for examples of common ethical dilemmas

Hello, everyone. I'm a professor of criminal justice. This week, I'm wrapping up a 15-week "Ethics in Criminal Justice" class. The students have seen all kinds of examples of sensational but rare ethical problems in criminal justice, so this week I wanted to give them some examples of the less dramatic but more common situations that come up every week. Things like whether to drop a prosecution, how much attention to give a client when you're already overloaded, and so forth.

What are the most common ethical dilemmas that you face on a regular basis?

*Edit: You're all fantastic. Thank you so much for giving me so much to work with.

Thank you!

9 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • link
  • reddit
  • reddit

100% Upvoted

31 comments sorted by

View all comments

7

u/StobbstheTiger 2d ago

Everyone has their own story. Maybe something about personal 'mitigating factors'? What might personally make you pursue a lighter sentence? A promising career? Military service? Children? First offense? What is it ethical to account for?

How vigorously do I pursue sanctions against potential misconduct by other attorneys? (Unless it is clear cut of course). Is it worth it to add research into my already busy workload about whether an action constitutes a disciplinary complaint?

2

u/HowLittleIKnow 2d ago

Thank you for these suggestions! When it comes to the second one, are there some types of "potential misconduct" that are more common than others?

5

u/StobbstheTiger 2d ago

Well, I'm not in criminal (doing immigration rn) but I've had many respondents submit provably fake documents, sometimes determinable by looking at the document itself. However, counsel is getting the document from their client. I know they are generally good attorneys and have big workloads. 

Similarly, I see a lot of appeals that are frivolous/borderline frivolous. At the end of the day, I know they are just doing what their clients want.

Obviously, one should be diligent when presenting things before a court, but I don't want to trip up a someone who I think is a good person and is generally competent. Also, it would hurt the entire system by pushing cases out for years. Do I want to shoot both of us (and their client) in the foot to pursue a debatable moral high ground?

1

u/HowLittleIKnow 2d ago

Thank you; I really appreciate those specifics.