In my legal career, I’m proud to say that I’ve represented and advised people accused of everything from murder to possessing alcohol while underage.  At least one accused child rapist in there.  A whole mess of accused drug producers, dealers and users.  That’s the job.  Even my transactional clients know I’ve done, or am doing, criminal defense work for other clients, and no one’s ever given me any grief about it, especially when it’s time to call on those skills for junior’s first DUI.

Interesting to see that some Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense is now trying to use representation of Guantanamo detainees as a wedge to cost some law firms their corporate clients.  Regardless of the fact that all the detainees at Guantanamo are presumed innocent since the administration has utterly failed to prove any criminal acts of these people in any court anywhere, this bureaucrat thinks and publicly states that corporate America should only hire attorneys that doesn’t represent these offensive people. 

Karen J. Mathis, a Denver lawyer who is president of the American Bar Association, said: “Lawyers represent people in criminal cases to fulfill a core American value: the treatment of all people equally before the law. To impugn those who are doing this critical work — and doing it on a volunteer basis — is deeply offensive to members of the legal profession, and we hope to all Americans.”

While I have my own issues with the ABA too, I have to agree that this is deeply offensive.  For the government or its pathetic minions to be using any leverage to try and decide which lawyers which defendants can use is just wrong.