Strike Out Not At Your Own Defenders

I am in a hotel room right now, officially on my way back home for the holidays. FREE of finals. Which means I finally have time to catch up on what I've been missing about the internet.

This post from Rick Rottman actually got me thinking. Well, really, it's the title more than anything.

"The CBLDF is making the world safe for virtual child-porn."

It's a sentiment that seems to be going around lately.

I think it's a sentiment that misses the point entirely. It's a sentiment that doesn't understand the role of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. It's a sentiment that doesn't understand the role of a legal defense.

Defending someone does not mean that you think they're right.

In fact, I've often said that the one thing no one teaches you about the law before you go to law school is that "lawyers aren't allowed to have opinions." Which is pretty much bullshit, as we have opinions as much as everyone else. But in a professional capacity our opinions count for jack shit.

In a sense, lawyers are interpreters. We translate the client's perspective into the language of legal claims, defenses, rights, statutory law, constitutional law, legal precedent and all that fun gobbledygook that is the reason we have jobs at all.

No one asks the opinion of the interpreter, and why should they?

Now this is particularly relevant when it comes to legal defense because, let's face it, while there are definitely innocent people stuck going through the system, there are a lot of people who are guilty too. And if lawyers only took part in the defense of people they believed to be innocent, well, there would be a lot of people left standing before the court, like a college student on his first trip abroad trying to remember how to stammer out "Where is the bathroom?"

A guilty person is still entitled to a legal defense. A guilty person is still entitled to have the government prove every element of the charge against him. And he also has the right to make damn sure that his and anyone else's rights weren't trampled on in the process of proving the case.

This guy bought something that may or may not be considered child pornography. But he still has the right to a legal defense.

And the First Amendment is one fucking doozy of a defense. No, freedom of speech is not absolute, and I think that you will find very few people who actually think it should be, but it is still a pretty fucking important right in the United States of America. And we should not and will not accept the erosion of our rights without a damn good reason.

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is helping to make sure that the courts have a damn good reason in this case, or that they will not find this man guilty.

Ultimately, our opinions about whether or not this actually constitutes child pornography are irrelevant to whether or not the CBLDF is doing the right thing here. The CBLDF is working to defend one of our basic Constitutional Rights, and you don't necessarily have to agree with them to appreciate what they are trying to do.

Misguided or not, the CBLDF is trying to protect US. And while no one is saying that you have to support them, we should not condemn them for it.

(For a far better defense of the CBLDF's position, read Neil Gaiman's post.)