There is no client as scary as an innocent man.
——Feelings from watching "Lincoln Lawyer"
Today in the Chinese judicial system class, we watched the Hollywood blockbuster "Lincoln Lawyer" together. The film was called "Dirty Justice" when it was released in Taiwan, and it was called "Breaking the Law" when it was released in Hong Kong. Both of these names are free translations, and I think they are completely in line with the tone of this film. When law and justice cannot be balanced, should a person choose to uphold the law, or choose to violate the law and uphold justice?
The film mainly tells the story of Los Angeles criminal defense attorney Haller, nicknamed "Lincoln Lawyer". Haller deals with clients at the bottom of society. This time, however, Haller's defense is against Louis, a wealthy young real estate developer. Louis was accused of assaulting and attempting to rape the bar girl, but Louis claimed that he was innocent, someone framed him, and Louis' mother was willing to pay a lot of money to prove the innocence of her beloved son. To learn the details of the case, Haller and his private investigator investigated the case. They initially obtained evidence that Louis seemed innocent, that the case could be easily won, and that Haller could easily get a hefty attorney's fee. However, a chance encounter led Haller to discover that the case had many similarities with another rape and murder case he had taken on, and he was therefore in a very dangerous situation. His best partner (who was in Chicago) I was a police officer) and died as a result. In the end, Haller ignored the obstruction and eventually sent Louis to prison, where he will be punished by the law.
The story is narrated very smoothly, and I enjoyed watching it very much, but this film is not just a cool film, there is a lot of legal knowledge in it, which also corresponds to what we learned in class.
First of all, I want to talk about the "judicial justice" in this film. Judicial justice is the primary and basic category of the judicial system, the life and soul of the judiciary, and the key and guarantee for implementing the basic strategy of governing the country by law. At the same time, the pursuit of judicial justice is judicial work. The Eternal Scar theme. Judicial justice must ensure the openness of judicial activities, the neutrality of judges, the equality of the parties' status, the participation in judicial process, and the legitimacy of judicial activities. In this film, we can clearly see that in the court trial, the whole process is completely open; there is no discriminatory behavior in the selected judge; both parties have the right to advocate for themselves in the courtroom interests, accusing others or denying their actions, clarifying themselves; and at that time, both parties would be questioned by the prosecution and defense in court, and fully participated in the trial process; the evidence collection activities of both parties at that time were also based on the laws of the United States and were reasonable and compliant forensics. Therefore, it can be said that the trial scene of this movie is a standard American textbook of "justice". Both parties in the judicial process strive for justice. The prosecutor even gave up all charges against Louis in the latter part of the story due to insufficient evidence. justice.
Then, I would also like to talk about the phenomenon of a criminal in the film who has no money and can only be provided with legal aid by the court. Legal aid is developing slowly in our country, and the emergence of legal aid system in China is an inevitable result of the development of China's socialist market economy and democratic rule of law construction to a certain stage. I think legal aid is the basic human rights of a country, and it is a legal protection system that provides free legal services to people with financial difficulties or special cases. This system guarantees that everyone has the right to use the law to assert their rights, and even if you are a criminal suspect, you have the right to claim before a judge.
Finally, for the more controversial part of the film-whether lawyers have absolute confidentiality obligations. I personally prefer absolute confidentiality, because as a lawyer, first of all, we are entrusted by our clients. The clients should have full trust in us, and they are willing to tell us the basic facts. If we challenge the system just because of a momentary outburst of social justice, I think all legal orders will be challenged. It is hard to imagine that a person who hires his own lawyer has to be wary of whether his own lawyer will turn against the tide and send himself to prison. I think this is unreasonable. Therefore, I firmly support the need for lawyers to fulfill the obligation of absolute confidentiality.
In short, after watching the movie "Lincoln Lawyer", on the one hand, I sighed at Haller's wonderful counterattack, and on the other hand, I felt that it is difficult to be a criminal defense lawyer, as our criminal law teacher said before "criminal defense lawyer" Lawyers are a profession that licks blood on the tip of a knife." It also made me realize that as a criminal defense lawyer, we not only need to defend innocent people, but also maintain social justice, with a clear conscience!
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