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I'm sorry, but you sound like a young man who has just discovered that the justice system is not perfect, but you have simple and obvious solutions that no one in the history of American jurisprudence has thought of before. If only they would listen to your common sense solutions!
There are several reasons defense attorneys put up a spirited defense:
Contrary to your belief, no, they don't always "know" their clients are guilty. They might believe it, they might strongly suspect it, but sometimes innocence is actually a possibility, even if an unlikely one. And our legal system is built on the premise that "reasonable doubt" is enough to acquit, and it's better to let ten guilty men go free than to imprison one innocent man. You might disagree with these premises, but then you have to convince everyone else; it's not something no one has actually put thought into.
If they do know for a fact that their client is guilty, they are actually not allowed to make arguments contrary to fact. (They can't claim the defendant wasn't there if they know he was.) In that case, they still can require the prosecution to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. That is because the state has enormous power, and requiring the state to prove you are guilty, not just "know" it because "it's obvious," is one of the few things preventing people from being casually railroaded by malicious cops and prosecutors (which still happens even with all these safeguards).
I strongly suspect the probability of that happening not bothering you is because you know who would be railroaded more often than not, and you think that would be a good thing because you have openly stated you don't really care about the procedural ethics or truth valence of any particular charge against
blackcriminals as long as they get got for something. But most people don't share your values or your eagerness to unleash the full power of a police state, with your confidence that that power will mostly fall on your despised outgroup.Convincing people is precisely what I am attempting to do! I’m well aware that you don’t think I’m doing a very good job of that. I’m well aware that my position is very much a minority one, both on the Motte and in American society at large.
And it’s not as though I haven’t acknowledged counterarguments throughout this discussion and others. I just ultimately believe, after thinking it through and examining the arguments, that my position is correct. It was not always my position! Again, as you know, I used to be extremely pro-civil-rights! Justice William Brennan was a major hero of mine. When I took a constitutional law class in college, I was consistently the one arguing for the most expansive protections for defendants possible! I’ve been persuaded away from that position over time, but it’s not like I don’t understand the arguments for it.
My outgroup here is “individuals with long criminal rap-sheets, including multiple felonies.” These are not normal upstanding middle-class people who get roped up unjustly and at random. Do you genuinely think, based on anything I’ve said, that I’d be happy to see some respectable black guy with a wife and a mortgage and a full-time job get snatched up by police and railroaded for a crime some white junkie committed? No, I wouldn’t, and that doesn’t happen. The people who would get expedited through the justice system under my proposed regime would be people who have conclusively demonstrated their inability to participate in a non-criminal manner in society.
Fair enough. I will tell you one of the reasons you fail to convince me: because even though I am not a member of the black criminal underclass that you want to put a boot on, I have seen what people like you and your compatriots have said they would do to me and mine just for being your political opponents. In your hypothetical police state that doesn't have to care about civil rights or reasonable doubt, I have no illusions that it would only be junkies getting the boot. No, don't tell me that as a respectable law-abiding white guy I would be safe; I don't believe you.
Happy? No, but I think if that were the price for putting more junkies away, you would be okay with it.
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