I once had a pretty high profile defense lawyer in my office, and we were having a pretty candid discussion. I had asked him "How can you defend someone who is obviously guilty?" And the jist of his answer was along these lines. "I am not there to determine if he is guilty or not, I am only there to argue the reasons that he may not be."
Also in many high profile cases where guilt is pretty much a given, their job is more to fight for a reduced sentence, based on factors. I am pretty sure a ton of defense lawyers go into it knowing it is about if they are guilty, it is about if their client is going to get the maximum sentence or not.
Maybe one of our resident lawyers can answer this, can you still defend a client that has admitted guilt to you, as non guilty? Or at that point can you only argue the circumstances? I believe I have heard that in many cases they will never ask the client point blank if they did it or not, so they can argue their client was never involved.
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