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DA argues: “Defense attorneys’ jobs are to manipulate the truth”

Actually, the DA argued:  “My job is to show the truth. On the other hand, the defense attorneys’ jobs are to manipulate the truth. Their job is to shroud the truth. Their job is [to] confuse jurors. Their job is to do whatever they have to—without regard for the truth—to get a not guilty verdict.” The South Carolina Supreme Court had the good sense to overturn this defendant’s conviction for order and order a new trial. Click here. Have you ever observed a DA cross the line in closing arguments? Post a comment and let us know.

{ 3 comments… add one }
  • Michael Cicchini December 10, 2019, 7:44 am

    Wisconsin prosecutors have used a similar argument, both in the case law and in my own experience: “defense counsel’s job is to get his client off the hook. That’s his only job here, not to see justice is done but to see that his client is acquitted.”

    In the most entertaining personal attack that I’ve read, “one prosecutor in an incest case suggested that defense counsel was also guilty of incest.”

    Learn these arguments ahead of time and preempt them (or at least prepare for them): https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/f955aadf-0011-4845-8db8-2b9972b1d361/downloads/oklahoma1.pdf?ver=1572151367939

  • Robert Welygan December 11, 2019, 9:28 am

    I had a DA once start his rebuttal by referring to me as his “fancy college-educated opponent” . . .

  • Stephen Holden January 20, 2020, 6:52 pm

    The DA didn’t wait for closing to attempt to poison the jurors mind; in opening, he told a jury that he represented “you,” the jurors.

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