In all my time as a lawyer, I think I have met maybe 20 truly evil people, and that includes my five years as an Assistant District Attorney in New York City.  Unfortunately, most people, including good people, do incredibly stupid things at the most inopportune times.  I always try to remember the old saying: "There, but for the grace of God, go I."  I will venture to say that most of us, if not all, have done something in our lives that could have put us in jail.

A good friend of mine, who is a doctor, once asked how I could defend some of my clients.  I asked him if he tries to determine, before beginning his treatment, if his patients are meritorious enough to be treated by him.  Why is it that when Lee Harvey Oswald was shot that no one questioned whether he should have been treated by a doctor, but many people would question an attorney's decision to represent him in a court of law.  If you don't believe that the relevant question in criminal law is not "Did the defendant do it?", but rather "Can the State prove it?", you just don't understand the wonder of our constitution and the real relationship between the individual and our government.

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