Stardate 20011116.0835 (On Screen via long range sensors): I understand the purpose of defense lawyers. (I understand the purpose of cockroaches, too.) A criminal defendant is entitled to competent defense, the idea being that this creates a reasonably high barrier that the prosecution must surmount to get a conviction and that helps prevent prosecution of innocents, not to mention getting acquittals for them if wrongly tried. All that's fine.
But sometimes defense lawyers are given impossible tasks to perform. They have to defend the indefensible, and they have to try to make a convincing case out of a shambles. And in doing so, I think that many of them are wasted actors. Perhaps there should be an academy award. It must be difficult for a lawyer to stand in front of a judge and deliver, with a completely straight face, a line like "My defendant was not guilty of assault; he was responding to the fact that the Cookie Monster attacked his daughter." It must be hard to do that without cracking an embarrassed grin; he must have spent hours practicing it before trial. (Or perhaps he just has no shame.) (discussion in progress)
