William B. Mange

Criminal Defense Lawyer in Austin, Texas

Criminal Law Blog

October 04, 2009

A question I sometimes hear is: “How Can You Represent Murderers, Child Molesters, And Drunk Drivers?”

This answer, though poor, is the best I can give.

First of all, I love criminal law. It is the most important area of law I can think of, and the most fun. I love trying cases. I love getting our criminal system to creak along in the direction of justice a little better. I love getting good results for clients.

I represent people who, for many different reasons, find themselves on the wrong side of the law and need a guide and an advocate to help them navigate the dangerous waters of the criminal justice system.

Now, I didn’t just decide one day that I didn’t like the color of the walls at the Travis County District Attorney’s office and quit to enter criminal defense practice. Deciding to defend the accused was an emotional and spiritual journey for me.

The journey turned on ethics, law, and God.

Some help on the ethics journey came from friends who had also once prosecuted. One of those friends is a great trial lawyer named Tom Weber. I’ll never forget the analogy he made.

He said, “look, suppose your biggest hero in the world was John F. Kennedy. And pretend for a minute that you were an emergency room doctor in Dallas, Texas when he was shot. You were shocked and outraged because Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated the President. And you were on duty when they brought Oswald into your operating room after Jack Ruby shot him.

“Oswald is brought in, and you’re convinced – beyond a reasonable doubt – that Oswald killed your hero. What will you do? Take a scalpel and stab Oswald’s heart? Do less than your absolute professional best to save Oswald’s life?

“No,” Tom said, “you’ll do your best as a professional. You’ll do your best as a professional because you owe that to him and every other patient who comes your way.”

The part about the law is simple. My take on the U.S. Constitution is that you, I, everyone we love, and everyone we think is a rotten rascal in the United States of America is truly presumed innocent until proven guilty. That’s no legal fiction. If you can’t agree with that notion, then you can’t sit on a jury.

Now the spiritual part. As I understand it, God hates all sin. Though He named 8 things he didn’t want His people doing, including misusing His name and murder, many other things mentioned in the Bible qualify as sins. Leviticus chapters 11-17 has a pretty long list of sins that aren’t in the 10 commandments, but God hates those, too, and prescribes the death penalty or banishment for many of them.

That isn’t how most people feel about it, I suppose, but I suspect that God doesn’t view a lot of things the same way that most people do.

How do I think most people in Texas view it? Our penal code pretty well spells out what conduct we as a community very, very strongly disapprove of, namely capital felonies, very strongly dislike, i.e. 1st degree felonies, strongly disapprove of, namely 2nd degree felonies, and so on.

And common sense tells me most folks would prefer a next door neighbor who misuses God’s name to a murderer. But it appears that God hates the act of murder and misuse of His name equally.

In his letter to the Romans, Paul describes Christian life, and has some pretty tough things to say: “As it is written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one.’” Ro 3:10. “We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” Ro 7:14-15.

In other words, Paul says: we are all sinners. I am a sinner. I wish I didn’t sin, but I keep on sinning anyway.

If I’m equally honest, I cannot look down on anyone. I sin and so does everyone else.

The bottom line is that accused murderers, child molesters, and drunk drivers are only that: accused, but presumed innocent. I owe them an ethical duty to do my best for them as a professional. It’s what I choose to do and I love it. And I have no business looking down on anybody.

I don’t generally discuss all this with clients, and I didn’t write this for them. It’s an answer to a question other people have asked me.

William B. Mange

Criminal Defense Lawyer in Austin, Texas

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