re: #218 LeftyRambles2413 (HappyWarrior)

Speaking as someone who has worked in law, I wish people would stfu about how awful prosecutors are. It’s a tough job and Kamala Harris as both a woman and color had it tougher than most people would in that profession but I guess it makes people feel better to talk shit about an important profession in our justice system.

I have had this argument many times with many people, usually about defense attorneys. As you obv know, our adversarial system requires zealous defenses and zealous prosecutions. If a candidate had been a defense attorney, of course they will end up defending some unpleasant people, but unless they themselves did something sleazy in their defending, what’s the problem? They were just doing their job as well as they could, and of course the same applies to prosecutors - they will probably end up, at some point, prosecuting sympathetic defendants.
“I just cannot vote for John L. Sullivan for alderman - did you know he has a well-documented and lengthy history of punching people!”
This isn’t directly on topic, but I am in a rambley, ranty mood-
Anybody hear remember Marilyn Vos Savant, certified genius? Many years ago (I am old now, apparently) she wrote a column advocating for a system where only innocent people would get the best legal representation, and guilty people would be given less competent counsel. I was pretty young at the time, but even I couldn’t get past the screamingly obvious problem - how the fuck do you determine, PRE-TRIAL, who is innocent? It may have been one of my first hints that high measured IQ and idiocy are not mutually exclusive.