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Litigators: Just Because You’re Defending Nazis Doesn’t Mean You Have To Be A Prick About It

Accepted submission by aristarchus at 2018-07-13 18:59:49 from the Nightmare-from-the-"Dream Team"-leftovers dept.
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Interesting legal site, Above the Law [abovethelaw.com] has a nice bit on the lawyers who defend the indefensible.

I get that Nazis need good lawyers, but good lawyers don't have to like it.

At least the ACLU has not fallen to the Russian induced hyper-partisanship that is rocking the US of A!

Alex Jones, the InfoWars guy, has lawyered-up anew, as Sandy Hook families pursue their lawsuits against him for defamation. Jones has claimed that the Sandy Hook shooting, where 27 people, including 20 children were murdered, was a “hoax.”

The New York Times ran a profile on his new lawyers, in part because they’re the same guys who defended the mainstream Republican — fine, “neo-Nazi” — publication, Daily Stormer. First Amendment lawyers Marc Randazza and Jay Wolman of the Las Vegas-based Randazza Legal Group are handling Jones’s defense in Connecticut.

Full disclosure time: I know Marc Randazza. I’ve done podcasts with Marc Randazza. Marc Randazza has defended this website.

Recusal in order?

And I respect what he’s doing. No, I don’t agree. I don’t think he should be doing it. Just because Nazis deserve a legal defense doesn’t mean you’re a good person for defending them. But, to contrast Randazza with another prominent legal defender of the alt-white takeover, Alan Dershowitz just says aggressive bunk on television to television hosts without the legal training to contradict him and then cries that his friends on Marthas Vineyard treat him like a pariah who supports baby kidnapping. Randazza does his Nazi dance in court, and he doesn’t cry when decent people shun him. While Dershowitz only gets up if rich and famous people are in trouble, Randazza doesn’t reserve an absolutist stand on the First Amendment solely for Nazis and other assorted Deplorables — if you think you live in a world where you can say anything you want without consequences, Randazza is there for you. I can respect that. I think of Randazza like the “evil Michael Avenatti,” and I mean that as a compliment.

No one does insults like lawyers! But the kicker:

But you can defend deplorable people without adopting and promoting their deplorable logic. There’s a difference. The legal community does not talk about that difference very much: lawyers shun deplorable lawyers, and deplorable lawyers put their heads so far up their own ass that they think any suggestion of restraint smells bad. But we can draw a line of demarcation around zealous legal defense and ridiculous alt-white dogma.

And more directly:

If you want to represent detestable clients, fine. But when you go out into the media and don’t just defend them but actually adopt their logic and moral arguments, that’s different. Then, it looks like you agree with them. And if you agree with them, you can no longer avail yourself of the lawyerly presumption that you are just doing your job. Instead of being a mere part of the process, you become part of the problem.

Here I am on Jurassic SoylentNews, and the only one who agrees with me is the bloodsucking lawyer.


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