According to a global database that shows worldwide crime indexes in 2018, NUMBEO (2018), Taiwan has been one of the least-dangerous countries not only in Asia but even around the globe. Despite the fact, people never stop quarrelling with the penalty of criminals. When there are some serious crimes in Taiwan, we can frequently notice the disputation of the felon’s penalty. Hang penalty, torture, electrocution, etc. are all commonly mentioned. However, the necessity of criminals’ legal defense is usually ignored, or even considered nonsense. Although some people say that it may be unrighteous, the legal defense for criminals should utterly be necessary and be a lawyer’s responsibility considering the following factors.
Firstly, lawyers are responsible for defending for criminals’ human rights. Committing crime doesn't mean that one's human rights cannot be protected. Considering the fact that no one is perfect and everyone makes mistakes more or less, the legal defense for criminals are necessary. Since that modern penalty for criminals are designed to civilize, to educate criminals and to give them the second chance, lawyers should defend for their clients for proper penalty. On one hand, legal defense for criminals is the practice of human rights protection. On the other hand, when lawyers are defending for criminals, they are as well avoiding retaliatory punishment. As mentioned above, modern penalty is somehow the measurement to civilize criminals, and lawyers should do their best to prevent unproper punishment. Hence, legal defense for criminals is necessary for human rights protection.
Secondly, legal defense is indispensable for balancing seriousness of crime and punishment. “Proportionality principle”, a legal central principle, which means that we should make the intensity of the method fit to the seriousness. To put it simply, we need to find the punishment which will not be overly harsh to the crime. In addition, there is another essential principle that everyone should follow. When discussing crimes and punishments, we must remember a central idea that “The reasonable penalty is produced to suppress criminal behavior and civilize criminals, but not to revenge others like caveman.” In order to fit these two central ideas, we need criminal defense lawyer to tailor the appropriate penalty with judges.
Afterwards, the pursuit of truth is why legal defense for criminals is needed as well. How did the crime actually happened is much more crucial than what penalty is sentenced. Since human-beings are not 100% perfect, there must be some misleading factors during investment and judgement. Also, the accused possesses the right of knowing truth. It’s lawyers’ job to defend their accused even if they conducted serious crime. Take mental illness for example. Some criminals committed crimes because of their long-time suffer from mental illness or bully, and criminals have to suffer from unsuitable penalty. In this case, lawyers are required to invest in neutral view point and find out the hidden factors. Lawyers need to empathize their clients to avoid bias or unclear information and think critically to discover the truth. Therefore, the legal defense by lawyers is necessary in order to discover genuine condition.
Although some people still consider legal defense for criminals as unrighteousness and toleration of crime, and we need harsh punishment to avoid felons. However, with lawyers defending for criminals, we can protect not only criminls' but other people's basic rights. Besides, harsh penalty does not decrease crime rates. Most of the safe countries in the world do not include extreme punishment. Instead, they emphasize on human right and felons’ legal defense. In general, claiming lawyer’s legal defense for criminals to be unrighteousness and toleration is the result of insufficient knowledge and lack of logical thinking.
Despite being controversial, a lawyer still has to defend their criminal clients. Considering the protection of human rights, the balance between crime and punishment, and the pursuit of truth, it’s a lawyer’s right and duty to defend their clients no matter whether they are guilty. Also, not to mention that the suspicions of legal defense are generally unorganized and solvable. To sum up, lawyers should defend for a client they think is guilty.
References
Numbeo. (2018) Crime Index by Country 2019. (2019) Retrieved from https://www.numbeo.com/crime/rankings_by_country.jsp?title=2019
Wikipedia. (2020) Critical thinking. (2020) Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_thinking
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