Let me pose a hypothetical for all you law majors out there.
Let's say that you are representing the defense of a man accused of murdering his wife. The evidence is up in the air as to whether or not he did it and you've taken the case. Everything is going fine until evidence comes to you, and only you, that proves beyond all doubt your client guilty. You are the only one who knows the evidence exists, and the only on that will know if you don't tell anyone.
Here's the question:
Which oath do you follow? upholding justice? or your oath to your client that you would defend them to the best of your ability?
I realize that this question is one that could be fairly easy to some of us, but it brings up an interesting point observation. If we side with one, we abandon the other. While we do have an obligation to the truth, does that render our oath of service superfluous?
Where does our place lie?
Just a thought.
Here's another: The placement of juries.
This isn't about simple geography, but rather many of the risks that having a human jury entail. The question of having robotic juries came up in my philosophy class and I felt it would be interesting to bring up here. What would be the consequences of having a robot jury? Many of our laws are written in black and white and any lawyer worth their salt will tell you that witness testimony is the most compelling and the least reliable because of it's fallibility vs. it's emotional persuasiveness.
Would it be better to have a robot who wouldn't be swayed by emotions?
I'd like to hear your opinions here too.
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1 comment:
To answer your first question. Once you become a lawyer, having clients that are only "innocent" is a fairytale. A person takes an oath to the law as well as to defend or convict to the best of their ability. Attorney client priveldge means just that. What the attorney is there to do is to provide what every person in this country has a right of which is legal counsel. To judge is to take on someone else's role....namely the judge. That's his job.
As far as the second, well, it reminds me in a spin off way of the movie "iRobot". There are certain things that humans do, that really can't be programmed into machines. Assistance with what the firm, mechanical list of laws is one thing, but to honestly pass judgement would be another. In the case that you are referring to where robots lead the jury, "Jury Nulification" would never have happened and if that were the case, a true statement between right and wrong would also not be made. Very dangerous ground to tred upon.
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