I think there’s more to it than that. They believe that if they can successfully bury all evidence that a person is innocent, then the person will in fact BE guilty. Thus, the more apparent it is that convict didn’t actually commit the crime of which he was accused, the harder the prosecution must fight to ensure that the convict will still be guilty.

The lawschools churn out tons of prosecutors for every defense attorney. Why? You can be brainless and have the judge defend you, if you are a prosecutor. Most judges are former prosecutors, or at least former attorneys (who therefore buy into the idea that allegiance to any law is a good thing, as opposed to allegiance to justice and logic.) Moreover, prosecutors have the economic pressure of a flow of unlimited tax dollars into their wallets in these socialist times — a “gaurantee” no defense attorney has.

As George Carlin once said: “If you wanted to go about cleaning up the world with a gun, you could do a lot worse than a whole bunch of dead prosecutors.”

LOL …There was much truth in the man.

I just don’t get this. I’m a big fat liberal myself, and if I lived in Mass I’d vote for Coakley, but you wouldn’t hear me spewing some silly bullshit about how it’s not so bad that she’s a law-and-order douchebag.

I think what’s going on here is that Bitch’s purity is an important part of her self-conception and she’s therefore unable to admit that she’s supporting a terribly flawed candidate on purely pragmatic grounds. Her only options then are to support the Republican or convince herself, somehow, that Coakley isn’t all that bad.

But I’d be Radley’s hypothetical leftist if I lived in Mass. Politics is not about whether she’s a good person, or even that she’s not a straight-up monster. It’s about getting someone who’ll vote my way more often in senate. (Or the White House, the idea of Obama as a leftist is the province of people who aren’t looking clearly at the evidence, whether that’s left-wing Obama voters or Glenn Beck)

I think any other view of electoral politics, doubly-so in this country, is impractical. And I say this as someone who cast his first two presidential votes for Ross Perot and Ralph Nader.

Well that’s certainly an informed viewpoint.

This is my speculation, they know that the processes of the law are fallible but believe that their is an overwhelming public interest in everyone believing or pretending to believe that they have a zero error rate. Thus they fight to hold on to every conviction no matter how obviously it is flawed and support others who do the same thing.

If Barack Obama ate a child on live tv tomorrow, I’m willing to bet that a sizable portion of the democratic party would be writing the next day that this was a valiant effort to enroll Satan in improving the economy.

In Andrew’s mind republicans are not serious in their drive to cut taxes. Apparently being a conservative in Andrew Sullivan’s mind is promoting a massive expansion of entitlements and more taxes. How is this conservative? It is a mystery!

And Andrew wonders why people think he is nuts.

But these quotes are priceless:

I live in Newton, Mass, an incredibly liberal city, and I see Brown signs all over the place. Last week before the shit really started to hit the fan, I was driving through Needham, Mass and I swear there was a Brown sign on every other lawn. I was stunned. To add insult to injury, I have a Coakley bumper sticker on my car and last week while in Wellesley, Mass I approached my car in a parking lot and I heard 2 electricians making fun of my sticker and of Martha. I could not believe it….the sticker had been on my car since October and all of the sudden I felt like I should take it off because people are ca-raaaazyyy!

I drove from Concord to Worcester today. We saw 6 or 7 Brown signs for every Coakley sign, maybe more. That’s pretty consistent with what I’ve seen in metrowest in the last few days. She is NOT popular around here. And yes, I agree that she’ll be ensconced for 20 years or more if she wins. She’s the anointed one and we’re all supposed to just fall in line. Oops.

So, what’s the moral status of advocating that someone who is likely innocent remain in prison? It’s a tough question.

It’s not a tough question, actually. If you truly think it is a tough question, you’re probably such a sociopath that I question your ability to function in society.

Actually you’re a bit incorrect in your assumptions. While I can’t speak in detail to every state I can say that typically every jurisdiction’s rules of professional conduct place a much greater burden on seeking justice and using discretion on the office of prosecutor than they do on other attorneys. In Maryland for example there are specific rules placed on prosecutors that are not placed on attorneys in other positions. A defense attorney’s role is indeed to see acquittal at all costs within the law. Prosecutors on the other hand are legally charged with a higher burden of ethical conduct and they must be held to it. If prosecutors consider that unfair then I’d suggest a different line of employment. The problem is that our fellow citizens tend to reward rule benders and breakers at the ballot box for the sake of being tough on crime and state bar associations are (wrongly) loathe to take up the issue.