A friend asked me the other day, "How can you as a Christian lawyer defend your criminal clients if you KNOW they are guilty?" I knowingly and unapologetically defend the guilty, under certain circumstances:
I defend clients all the time knowing that they are guilty. I do it "if" I discern in my spirit that they are truly repentant and want to change, if they are remorseful too; and I do it because they are fearful of going to jail or worse yet, to prison; and I do it to reunite them with their loved ones - their family, and because their crime has already occurred. There is nothing I can do to change yesterday - it is all in the past; all I can do is help them today, with the hope of affecting their tomorrow. I would not defend them if they did not have remorse about what they did - or if they were not "repentant" (the original biblical language translated into our word "repentant," means to "change direction." They must want to change, and if they do, and they appear sincere to me (often they struggle with addictions, etc) I will help them, get them into treatment, minimize their exposure to incarceration, though there will often STILL be consequences for their crimes/sins. Forgiveness and consequences are NOT mutually exclusive; and you can and should be forgiven when you sin and commit crime; though you will often still have to be punished and suffer the earthly consequences. (My fees can be a consequence, though, right?!) (Just a little levity.)
No matter how guilty people are, their loved ones STILL love them and want me to defend them - they want their family reunited. Truth be told, "I really help families more than I defend individuals." This is why I defend folks who I know are guilty, which is in contrast to your earlier comment that nobody with a clean conscience would defend someone they knew was guilty. Sad to say, but if I only defended the wrongfully accused, I'd have very few clients a year. I'd be penniless too! Matthew 9:12 addresses this same issue and Christ said it best: "It's not the healthy who need a physician, but the sick. I desire mercy, not sacrifice. I've come not to call the righteous to salvation, but sinners." The backdrop for His statement: The "religious" Pharisees had asked His disciples (in the verses before the response by Jesus), "How can your master eat with tax collectors and sinners?"
That's the same old tired question asked of me - too often by believers, "How do you as a Christian lawyer defend your criminally accused clients when you KNOW they're guilty?" His response was perfect, as He answered for His disciples. He was all about extending grace to ALL of us, including ALL of my guilty clients ... and even the murderers who were actually killing Him, WHILE they were in the process of killing Him! Remember what He said then? "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." He was all about forgiving us even though we're guilty; and in fact, it's a commandment that He personally stated very, very clearly as recorded in Matthew 6:15: "If you do not forgive others their sins, your heavenly Father will not forgive you of your sins." His word is replete with His teachings to all of us, to condemn the act, not the person; hate the sin, not the sinner. Look how he forgave the "guilty" convicted criminal crucified next to Him. (That guy was forgiven - and getting back to consequences for a moment, he nonetheless had to suffer the earthly consequences for his crime, even though forgiven by Christ)
In Luke 23:43, Jesus is recorded as telling that "guilty," crucified criminal, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, today with me in paradise." We know that guy was "guilty," because he himself told us he was "guilty." He rebuked the other unrepentant criminal crucified on the other side of Jesus, when he said: "Don't you even fear God? We are guilty for what we have done, but this man is innocent." Then he turned to Christ and said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom." Christ didn't ask him, "Are you tithing?" "You go to church?" "Were you baptized?" "Do you speak in tongues?" No, He didn't ask that criminal any of these questions or any number of other denominational, divisive things. Jesus didn't respond to him with, "Are you guilty?" No, He KNEW the man was guilty, but He helped him anyway! He told him he could go to heaven with Him anyway! He says the same thing to me and you, and to ALL my guilty clients too - so long as we (and they) do the same thing that this guilty, convicted, crucified criminal did - publicly acknowledge that Christ IS who He said He was ( i.e. "Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom" - implicit in this statement is the fact that the repentant and yet guilty criminal acknowledged that Jesus HAD a KINGDOM - that He was who He said He was; and we must likewise be repentant about our own sins.
Check out Luke 23:43 and the few verses immediately preceding this awesome response by Jesus! It's the best news in the whole Bible, in my opinion, as it basically says that ALL of us can come with Him into heaven - even the guilty, convicted criminals like this one on the cross next to Him ... "so long as" we PUBLICLY (as the criminal did!) acknowledge Christ as the Messiah while manifesting repentance, just like that guilty criminal. In life, I believe that ALL of us are one (or the other) of those two guilty criminals (sinners) on either side of Jesus; we're either the repentant one, or the unrepentant one. The only question we must ask ourselves is: "Which one am I?"
I find it ironic and hypocritical that I am often asked this rhetorical question as to how I can do what I do, by those who are the first ones at my office pounding on my desk and whining the loudest when one of their own family members gets arrested. They will complain about how the police never read Miranda rights to their family member! Isn't it interesting that people want "mercy" when they are in trouble, but they want "justice" for everyone else who stands accused?
Now you know why I knowingly and unapologetically defend the guilty.
John
Law office of John P. Contini & Associates
1112 SE 3rd Ave.
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33316
954.766.8810
http://www.jpcontini.com/
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