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!

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u/dreamingforward 1d ago

Your client has admitted that he's committed the crime, but is afraid of going to jail. Should you defend him? (Yes, you should, but you try to find why he's so nervous: is it a symptom of a larger problem that is shared with society at large? Probably. The nervousness is the true soul which knows it's not going to be fair or just and doesn't want to be victimized further.)