Crime & Federalism

Here is something about criminal law that has always given me a chuckle.

Find a true believer criminal defense lawyer.  He'll excuse anyone's misdeeds and presume everyone innocent.  But when a cop is charged with a crime, excuses and presumptions of innocence goes out the window.  Burn the witch.

Then find a true believer prosecutor or just red-meat conservative.  Everyone is guilty - until a cop is charged with a crime.  Then we must "withhold judgment" and "wait for the facts to fully develop" before drawing any conclusions.  Even then, there is only one proper conclusion: Not guilty.

I had a professor who was the lead prosecutor for the anti-corruption division of his office.  When he took his job prosecuting crooked cops, all of his longtime friends in law enforcement disowned him.  Mind you, he only went after the really bad apples.  Yet good cops hated him for that.

I suppose the need to choose a side and the inability to find faults with people on "our side" just shows us how much like apes we remain.  The best proof that we evolved from apes is our current behavior!