re: Question for judges and attorneys...Where does your morality (if any) come into play ?

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Careful Kiwi.
You are actually addressing a poster in which "prove it" means something.

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Then why are you responding? Let that poster respond.

I'm waiting for the poster in whom "prove it" actually means something to respond.

Now hush and let him.

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I'm waiting for the poster in whom "prove it" actually means something to respond.

Now hush and let him.

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He did. Congrats on realizing it.

I tried the law route with 2 years night law school at Loyola NO in the mid seventies. I can assure folks they teach winning at any cost is the accepted approach. morality/ethics does not generate income

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The practice of law and morality are not mixed.

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I believe I see why you are insisting this. I'm pretty sure you're still wrong, but I'll get to that in a minute.

When I hear, "The practice of law and morality are completely separate," I think of the corporate practice of law, meaning that I think of all lawyers and the entire legal system working.

I don't think that's what you mean.

I think you mean individuals making individual choices about how to handle individual cases.

It still doesn't change the argument I've made given my interpretation of the question, and you've said nothing that convinces me that I'm incorrect about what I've argued, but I'd like to set it side for a minute because I don't even think the way I originally understood the question is what you're talking about.

As regards what I DO think you mean when you say that, I think it's even more incorrect if possible. And I think you keep arguing it because you're concluding that if something is unethical that somehow the fact that it also may be immoral is of no consequence. It seems pretty obvious that that's not true.

Sure, some of the rules of ethical conduct are based on concerns not rooted in morality. For example, most if not all state bar associations do not permit a law firm to advertise their services as being superior to other firms offering the same legal services. This isn't based on a moral concern. More than anything else, it's a strategy designed to protect the reputation of the entire legal profession (if it were to protect people against subjective claims impossible to prove so as to be fraudulent, no one would be able to advertise like that, and they can). If someone did it anyway, they would be violating ethics, but not morals (IMO, anyway).

However, here's a real life story.

I grew up with a guy who became a lawyer and developed a gambling addiction. To feed the addiction, he started taking money that was supposed to be in escrow for real estate closings and gambled with it. When he lost (as he almost always did), he would cover that client's money with the next new client's money, along with using some of it to hit it big and cover all of his losses and pay everyone back (which, of course, never happened.)

In other words, a Ponzi scheme with a gambling twist.

Obviously he was eventually caught, and he did a couple of years in the white collar prison that they send people to who steal millions of dollars (which he did) instead of the regular prison they send people to who steal a couple thousand dollars. But that's for another thread.

Anyway, the point is that what he did was certainly unethical. And illegal. But that in no way means that it wasn't also immoral.

Use any meaningful definition of the word "immoral" you want, this was an immoral decisions and act on his part. People were directly hurt by it—people seem to assume that there is someone standing by in such a situation to make restitution, be it his malpractice insurance company or someone else, but there isn't. Those people just lost the money he took and gambled away—some lost their life savings.

Insisting that morality has nothing to do with that is asinine.

Again, I think what you mean is that all anyone need do is follow the ethical guidelines and then no one would need to ever think about morality. But that's different than claiming that never the twain shall meet. Or that morality doesn't exist in the practice of law.

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It seems obvious to me that the answer is both, depending upon the specific ethical edicts in question.

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I'd love someone to explain the morality of a 30-day response time for request for admissions.

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I believe I've only seen one poster attempt to answer this, and he failed.

Attorneys, by oath, must zealously represent their clients, no matter the case.

This could mean representing the State. It could mean representing someone who is 100% guilty. Everyone has the right to be represented by an attorney.

Judges, by oath, are neutral and INTERPRET the law and keep order.

Sometimes you'll disagree with the attorneys. Sometimes you'll disagree with the judge, but it was set up this way.

And for some reason, this has been lost on people since Trump had charges brought against him. Nothing has changed. And, before you even go into this being unfair to Trump -- don't forget Trump has been involved in over 4,000 law suits in his lifetime. He is not new to the courtroom. He fricks people over regularly and everyone in his circle except for his children faces major consequences.

You’re not wrong on all of that, but prosecutors have an additional obligation and duty to very responsibly and reasonably exercise their extremely weighty power of prosecutorial discretion. Having been a prosecutor myself, I’m 100% certain that this DA’s most “sacred” of authority and power in prosecutorial discretion was blatantly abused. And I’m not one for melodrama or theatrics or hysterics or hyperbole - my opinion on this (noted my opinion only) is the most muted and subdued way I could possibly describe it.

It’s not a over exaggeration when you hear or read that this exercise of prosecutorial discretion (i.e. decision to prosecute) is unprecedented. It literally is in several ways of the utmost importance in our justice and judicial system. And there was good reason why this particular use of prosecutorial discretion has not been applied before - that would be because rational and reasonable people wielded the power until a handful disgraceful excuses for prosecutors seized the opportunity to abuse the power for purely political purposes.

The problem, though, is the law itself. It gives the prosecution an advantage that the defendant cannot possibly overcome.

You had no intent to break the first law but you broke it anyway which suggests that your overall intent was to break another law. Plus if you were intending to break law B ultimately, then since you committed breaking of law A which is generally a misdemeanor, it now becomes a felony. But I don't have to prove that you in fact broke law B which is not even a law that the the state has on the books but that the Feds have on the books that they are not even charging you with.

If it was not so unjust....it's the ultimate frick job