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Ethics in the practice of law
Ethical dilemmas in lawyers
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Recommended: Ethics in the practice of law
Samuel DeRocco IV
The Ethical Issues of Pretexting in the Legal Profession
Pretexting is the use of deception or misrepresentation to obtain information and achieve a desired negative effect or advantage over an unsuspecting party. The issue of pretexting illustrates one of the many “blurred lines” of ethicality in the legal profession. An attorney is strictly prohibited from engaging in “conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation” under ABA Model Rule 8.4(c), yet some attorneys use deception as a means to find evidence to support his or her claim in a case. I disagree with the assertion that such practice should be innately considered unethical. Undercover investigations led by attorneys aimed at uncovering political corruption, discrimination, and organized crime have been around for decades, and operations of such activity is unlikely to end any time soon.
There is a trend in legal policy that determines the ethicality of pretexting by interpreting deceptive activities in both a “status-based” and “conduct-based” analyses. Examples of status classifying inc...
Two years later, the former undercover New York City narcotics detective testified in the Brooklyn Supreme Court, that the Brooklyn South and Queens narcotic squads had been framing innocent people routinely by planting evidence, in order to reach arrest quotas. “It was something I was seeing a lot of, whether it was from supervisors or undercovers and even investigators” , he recounted during his
“Police throughout the United States have been caught fabricating, planting, and manipulating evidence to obtain convictions where cases would otherwise be very weak. Some authorities regard police perjury as so rampant that it can be considered a "subcultural norm rather than an individual aberration" of police officers. Large-scale investigations of police units in almost every major American city have documented massive evidence of tampering, abuse of the arresting power, and discriminatory enforcement of laws. There also appears to be widespread police perjury in the preparation of reports because police know these reports will be used in plea bargaining. Officers often justify false and embellished reports on the grounds that it metes out a rough justice to defendants who are guilty of wrongdoing but may be exonerated on technicalities.”
The moral dilemma identified in the Lake Pleasant Bodies case is an attorney’s disturbing conflict with his competing rights to his client and as Badaracco (2009) states “…and his empathy for the victims’ families” (Badaracco, 2009, p. 6). In the case study, Attorney Frank Armani sympathizes with the father of a victim and questions divulging confidential information that would breech the attorney-client agreement with his client Frank Garrow. Additionally, the moral dilemma includes the overwhelming decisions Armani faced constructing a plausible defense for this client and at the same time setting aside his personal reservations regarding his clients guilt.
Given the difficulty in navigating these unique challenges, in-house counsel have been increasingly targeted as part of governmental investigations and regulatory actions. This is especially true in cases where the government believes the in-house counsel was not acting as an attorney and can provide useful information against the client. In Part II, we will look at some of these examples.
The recent financial crisis and thereafter recession sent shockwaves through the U.S. economy. Many businesses had to scale back, file for bankruptcy, or even close altogether. The jewelry business is no different, increasing levels of unemployment and stagnant wages caused many to limit their discretionary spending. In our example, the jewelry chain turned to debt financing to ensure the survival of their business. However, this practice was unsustainable, which put this business in a position where filing for bankruptcy was an enticing prospect. In spite of their struggling financial position, the Rolex representative for the business presents an interesting proposition, the jewelry company can enter a three million dollar, debt financed, commitment to sell a new line of watches that could potentially save their business. This presents an ethical dilemma, does the jewelry business enter the commitment knowing they do not have the funds to meet it? The act that would the greatest good, or rather the fewest negative repercussions, for the greatest number would be to purchase the inventory from Rolex in hopes it would solidify their
“Most people in the U.S. want to do the right thing, and they want others to do the right thing. Thus, reputation and trust are important to pretty much everyone individuals and organizations. However, individuals do have different values, attributes, and priorities that guide their decisions and behavior. Taken to an extreme, almost any personal value, attribute, or priority can “cause” an ethical breach (e.g. risk taking, love of money or sta...
Illinois, which follows the opinion regarding the introduction of false evidence to the court and jury as a deliberate deception but takes it one step further. Napue argues when the State allows false evidence to be heard in a case without it being corrected this too was an intentional deception. Taliento took the stand during the appellant’s trial and was questioned vigorously by defense counsel as to whether or not he would receive prosecutorial leniency in exchange for his testimony. Time after time Taliento refuted the allegation of the agreement only for the appellant to later discover this was indeed the case. The deal was discovered in the opposition affidavit penned by the first prosecutor on the case, as well as the affidavit filed by the United States Attorney. The court perceives the prosecutor’s office as one entity to which a deal made by one assistant would be attributed the office as a
Cheating is defined in the dictionary as, to deceive by trickery; swindle, however the dictionary fails to tell you if it is right or wrong to cheat. People have many different beliefs when it comes to cheating; some think its fine to do while others completely disapprove. I intend to show the different beliefs, from different perspectives of people, and also intend on proving which beliefs have the strongest and weakest arguments.
Prosecutors are arguably the most influential figures in the American criminal justice system. They decide which charges to bring, what plea bargains to offer, and what sentences to request. According to attorney advocates, prosecutors across the country are abusing their legal power and getting away with it. The most common forms of prosecutorial misconduct are hiding exculpatory evidence and engaging in improper examination and argumentation. Another form of intentional misconduct is the use of false testimony to win convictions. In 2009, Goodman, a well-known attorney in Chicago represented Brian Wilbourn in a federal narcotics case. Prosecutors knowingly allowed an informant to testify that Wilbourn sold crack cocaine out of a penthouse apartment over a three-year period when he was in fact nowhere near the scene at any time. Stephen Saloom, a former attorney, acknowledges that prosecutors are abusing their power, he quotes "As best we can determine, most prosecutors ' offices don 't even have clear internal systems for preventing and reviewing misconduct, but perhaps even more alarming is that bar oversight entities tend not to act in the wake of even serious acts of misconduct. We do not accept this lack of accountability and oversight for any other government entity where life and liberty are at stake, and there 's no reason we should do so for prosecutors"
This article focuses on two different approaches of deception: withholding information versus distorting information, and how that may or may not change employees’ perception of the deceiver (Dunleavy, p.239). Dunleavy defines deception as “the conscious attempt to create or perpetuate false impressions among other communicators” (Dunleavy, p.240). Three hypotheses’ are presented in the article...
Base on Albert Carr You mean to say that business may encourage people to doing some bluffing ethical? Why, bluffing is nothing more than a form of lying! You’re advising them to lie!” Base on the statement by Albert Carr, I think that the statement is to show that the men especially have done a higher percentage in bluffing ethical. This is because of their physical and their attitude that maybe decent have create an advantage to them to done bluffing ethical. Their attitude that brave and able to explain with good example and proof that may attract people in trusting them. Usually the generation Y will be the victim. This is because they have a basic knowledge of life. Business now a day mostly lead by a men. So a men will done a strategy to find the victim that suitable to be lie and easy to trust someone. Record show that before the 2000 there are many men have monopoly the sales industry. A show lot of profit, but increasing of legal action is higher. Many victim was reported.
Harris, George C. "Testimony for Sale: The Law and Ethics of Snitches and Experts." Pepperdine Law Review (2000-2001): 28. Online.
With law enforcement lying, it makes it hard for citizens to depend on law enforcement. In the article, “All the Court’s a stage, and All the Lawyers Players: Leading and Misleading the Jury” Richard Zitrin and Carol Langford explain what really happens in the courts. They state, “Abraham Dennison is the most successful trial lawyers in Port City. He is smoother than silk outside of the courtroom, but in court he takes on a bumbling, aw-shucks persona.” They explain how Dennison changes the clothes he wear, and his clients to look like they are not privileged. He even dumbs down he’s speeches when talking. I might have to say it is a very smart tactic to win over the jurors. The main goal in court is to sell your client to the jury so they will feel bad for him/her. According to this article, “Dennison tells his young associates to ‘select a biased jury, it wins the case.’” By picking the right jury you can sell your clients innocence. It is sad you have to bend the truth in order to win a case. The fact one has to pick the right jury who would feel sorry for one, and act like one is uneducated in order to win a case is sad. This is bending the truth to people thinking something totally different. One should win a case by the facts, not how you hold yourself. An example of lawyers actually lying to win a case of a guilty man is the ‘affluenza’ case. In the article “Before
The implausibility of the various methods of the detection of deception poses an immense threat to the innocent. When we apply these results to a defendant on trial, these "false results" can be extremely detrimental to the case. False results can possibly allow the guilty to be liberated and the innocent to become incarcerated. The only way we can apply these tests and use the results as court evidence is if we can make the testing procedures 100% reliable. But, as research shows us, because of the numerous influential environmental, psychological, social, and physiological factors that can damage the validity of the results, the test results will remain obsolete in the eyes of the court.
Albert Carr argues that business is a game and that business ethics differs from private life ethics that individuals practice. Carr explains that practices such as bluffing and not telling the whole truth are morally acceptable in business context. Carr claims that one cannot apply a single standard of ethics universally as situations differ from one to another. My response to such claim is that I refuse to accept that businesses cannot be strictly ethical.