- by Thom Page
Representing a Dog on Death Row Is No Different
If you get arrested or wrongly accused of something and your freedom is truly at stake, you will want the absolutely most effective criminal defense attorney to use whatever means necessary to help you. Truth be known, all of the best criminal defense attorneys I know have made enemies at some point zealously representing their clients, and the reactions from the public about their character are often mixed as well. They are frequently hated by plenty, but never by those whose freedom they fight for. They typically couldn’t care less what other people think of them because frankly, it’s irrelevant.
In response to my law partner’s statement to the NY Times that he doesn’t care if people hate him for what and how he represents dogs on death row, the words of Clarence Darrow come to mind. Darrow was the renowned criminal defense attorney who in 1925 defended teacher John Scopes against illegally teaching evolution in a public school. Darrow once remarked that
“to be an effective criminal defense counsel, an attorney must be prepared to be demanding, outrageous, irreverent, blasphemous, a rogue, a renegade, and a hated, isolated and lonely person – few love a spokesperson for the despised and the damned.”
In our defense of Pitbulls, Rottweilers, Dobermans, German Shepherds and others facing death, we have probably been called all of these.
No matter, because we’re rather sure the dogs are grateful.
