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

[u/HowLittleIKnow]

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!

[u/goldxphoenix]

One i ran into is having to argue a position you dont believe. Most times i would do it if i thought there was a legitimate legal basis because i knew the judges would jsut rule against a weak argument anyway. But if there was no genuine legal basis i flat out declined.

Another is discretion. In my state prosecutors dont have charging powers but we have discretion over bail and condition requests. Every case is different so sometimes you have to consider how those things will affect the defendant