NCJ Number
177208
Editor(s)
R J Uphoff
Date Published
1995
Length
376 pages
Annotation
This ethics guide for criminal defense lawyers emphasizes public defenders and appointed counsel representing the indigent and issues of professional responsibility that affect criminal practitioners.
Abstract
The purpose of the guide is to give criminal defense lawyers, especially public defenders and lawyers representing indigent clients, assistance and guidance in making some of the difficult ethical choices they will inevitably face in their practice. In the first part of the guide, contributors examine defense counsel's role and the allocation of decision-making responsibility and chapters specifically focus on ethical representation, conflicts between ideology and duty, client competency, the insanity plea, the questionable suppression motion, defense witnesses, plea officers, decision-making in juvenile delinquency proceedings, and the role of parents or guardians in juvenile delinquency representation. The second part of the guide looks at issues related to confidentiality and defense counsel's duty to disclose. Chapters cover client perjury, falsely obtaining appointed counsel, disclosing adverse authority, correcting judicial misunderstanding, the client with undisclosed prior convictions, and the client with a false identity. The third part of the guide discusses conflicts of interest, with consideration paid to representing codefendants out of the same office, defense counsel with a spouse who prosecutes, the ex-prosecutor as defense counsel, simultaneous representation of the innocent client and the real culprit, limits of defense counsel's intimate relationships with others, and ethical limits of intimacy in the lawyer-client relationship. The last part of the guide focuses on providing defense services, compensating defense witnesses, and coping with excessive workloads. An appendix contains a list of specific questions presented in each chapter. References and notes