I’ve been having a running discussion with my uncle lately (he’s in his 80s, and let’s just say “somewhat set in his ways” ... but entirely competent mentally). The discussion revolves around a horrific murder in central Connecticut two years ago where the police seem to have captured the two offenders red-handed as they were leaving the home that they had invaded. Before leaving, they had murdered a man’s wife and two daughters and left him for dead.

My uncle wonders aloud (and loudly) “What good are the f***king public defenders who are trying to keep this guy (1) off Death Row (2)? All they’re doing is getting their names in the paper and posturing and running up the bill! They should take this guy out and hang him now—in fact, the police should have shot them both the night they captured them leaving the house.”

(1) [the first defendant to be up for trial]
(2) [Connecticut has a death penalty, and the prosecutor is aiming for that here]

Okay. My uncle is sane, and on most topics pretty rational—and there’s a certain (small) bit of rationality to what he’s saying, since the first of the defendants has tried to commit suicide while awaiting trial, and has expressed a willingness to plead guilty if the death penalty were off the table and came close to saying “the hell with it, I’m guilty, put me down now” ... but his lawyers were effective in getting that quashed.

My point is that if his attorneys don’t advocate for his life (at least!) and make the prosecution prove its case… then they aren’t lawyers at all. And of course we need ethical and competent attorneys. (Even he agrees with that statement.)

So how do you crack someone’s intransigence to reason, when you know that it’s possible, because they are generally reasonable people? (Keep in mind that this may have application on Fluther, too.)

Topics: Fluther, debate, meta, epistemology, discussion, reason, argument, attorneys