Defence Barristers.. somebody explain them please?

[reallifeboogie]

I don't understand how somebody can be a defence barrister to somebody who has done a horrendous crime. Watching Soham murder trial.

I don't know anything about criminal prosecution

This is really interesting.

I’m shocked that it pays so little!!
I knew that some get paid a lot more than the ones doing it for legal aid but I still thought they got a decent wage.

Its something I’ve always been interested in (although probably not smart enough) but like OP I would struggle to defend some of the cases and it would likely affect my own MH.
If it’s rubbish money and long hours on top then it’s definitely not something I’d want to pursue.

I truly believe everyone should have a voice, regardless of income and so I think it’s an amazing job that they do/you did.

I’ll be honest, having worked with barristers for a long time, quite a few do treat it as a game. And in chambers they would sometimes joke with each other about cases. Imagine dealing say in and say out with some of the bleakest and darkest parts of what humans can do to each other. You need a gallows humour to survive. I only worked with them, I didn’t live the case in the same way, and a decade after leaving that job some of the things I read still stay with me.

So, giving the work that lens allows them to do the job, and do it well. I 100% agree they should keep their coping mechanism in the privacy of chambers though. It should not seep out in court!

God these threads.

They really should teach the basics of the CJS in schools.

Yes you are right but there are some people who are obviously guilty and there is overwhelming evidence proving their guilt

Obviously guilty? I'll refer you to my answer upthread, about the people who were 'obviously' guilty but who turned out not to be. They're still entitled to an open judicial process and to be treated as innocent until proven otherwise.

And as I said, if it can be afforded to the accused at Nuremberg then it can be afforded to everyone else.

What would you prefer, trials by mob?

If you want to be really depressed about the level of some people's ignorance, read the thread about the driver in the Wimbledon tragedy in the News bit of this site. That'll keep you awake worrying, about educational standards if nothing else.

there are some people who are obviously guilty and there is overwhelming evidence proving their guilt

There may be evidence that they committed the act but there still could be defences - they may be mentally ill or lack any culpability/criminal intent or acting in self defence and so on. There maybe defences that you as a consumer of the media know nothing about.

For example look at the woman with no prior history of epilepsy who had a first fit when driving, blacked out and ended up killing children in a school. She had no criminal intent at all and the CPS are not prosecuting her.

However, say she had been prosecuted. According to this 'obviously guilty' approach, because she was driving the car and 'obviously' committed the act, does that mean that no barrister should represent her? Even though there is an 'obvious' defence. Imagine that was you. Would you want a barrister to represent you? Or would you be cheerfully accepting of the fact that everyone thought you were 'obviously guilty' because there was 'overwhelming evidence' that it was your car, you were driving and you were the cause of death?

But in my experience that’s not what defence lawyers do. They seem to treat the judicial process as a game and do anything they can think of to get their client off

sorry your experience is what? A couple of weeks as a juror. Give me strength.

I watched the programme I believe the OP is referring to and it was very interesting how many different types and strands of evidence the Prosecution had to compile. We know now it was not a slam dunk case due to the manner in which Ian Huntley had covered his tracks and destroyed potential evidence. There was no 'smoking gun' irrefutable evidence, all the evidence against him had to be meticulously built up. One of the members of the Jury was not convinced by it.

Looking at the programme through the eyes of knowing that Ian Huntley was guilty and found to be so and knowing all of the history around him which came out after the trial skews perception.

The whole point of a robust Prosecution and equally robust Defence is to ensure that the right person is found guilty of the crime and punished accordingly and as others have pointed out that even with all that the verdict can and has been found to be wrong in some case.

Partly the education system.

Partly the press, which makes no attempt to explain these things.

Massively, politicians like Priti Patel etc who deliberately obfuscate things for their own ends.

Eg the human rights 'he's got a cat so he can't be deported' thing. I'm pretty sure it was a case where one small aspect was whether the person was fully settled here, and having a cat was mentioned as one tiny part of that. But politicians and press made it 'man says he can't be deported because he has a cat'.

If you want to be really depressed about the level of some people's ignorance, read the thread about the driver in the Wimbledon tragedy in the News bit of this site. That'll keep you awake worrying, about educational standards if nothing else.

That thread was shocking and depressing in equal measure.

A lot of people here are answering “why” when the OP asked “how”. Obviously the two are very closely related, but they’re not the same.

I’m sure all of us can think of a job where we think “I don’t know how they can do that job but I’m glad that they do”.

I watched that. Such a sad case.

@OnceICaughtACold that's is explained perfectly.

Agreed, but then I think some people are wilfully ignorant and it doesn't matter how often they are told. They quite like the idea of sitting in judgement on defence barristers. They are probably the kind of people who like to sit in judgement on all kinds of things without informing themselves first.

You can bet if they or a loved one were wrongly accused (and it could happen to anyone) then they would be very glad defence barristers exist/very devastated to discover how much legal aid funding has been hollowed out over the years.

Given the “wilfully ignorant” include CCHQ pretending not to know about the cab rank rule when attacking Keir Starmer, I think the more general public has some excuse.

Oh they knew all right. That wasn't wilfully ignorant it was just being wilfully misleading.

Yes, I know.

My point was that is some excuse for the more general public not knowing.

We want ideally to live in a free and fair society where you don't get locked up just because the police reckon you are guilty. The police gather all the evidence against you and that gets tested in court with a skilled defence barrister doing their utmost to disprove the case against you because that proves how strong it is and with a good defence if you get convicted anyway there is confidence that the case against you was strong and there's less likelihood that there was a miscarriage of justice.

Think of it as like the destruct-testing of cars or safety equipment before entrusting lives to them.

If a defence barrister cam successfully destroy the prosecution's case then the evidence is too weak to trust when an unjust sentence would destroy a life.

Defence barristers are serving the public by ensuring that everyone in prison has a strong case against them. I want them to be brilliant at their jobs because I don't want anyone in prison whete the case against them is flimsy and not properly credible.

Trust me, it didn't get better.