[quickthrower2]

Effective defence would allow the guilty to go free. (although “guilty” is a jury verdict so that is impossible but I presume you mean would be found guilty had more evidence prevailed). You can’t have an advocate that draws arbitrary lines at which they are not on your side advocating for you, what would those be?

Say someone says to their lawyer they shot the person but really they are covering for their wife even to mthe lawyer. The lawyer then hears them say in court they didn’t shoot (the truth) but the lawyer just knows they are saying something different now to what they said before. It could be that.

[mannykannot]

> ...although “guilty” is a jury verdict so that is impossible but I presume you mean would be found guilty had more evidence prevailed.

I'm not the author of the post referred to here, but I suspect that 'guilty' was intended to be read as 'actually committed the crime'.

To be clear, I support the principle that it is the acquittal of a perpetrator is far less of a miscarriage of justice than is the conviction of someone other than the perpetrator.

[bryanrasmussen]

In this case I was using guilty in its common English usage, and not the specific American Jurisprudence usage.

[quickthrower2]

You must mean clear cut cases too then. Not self defence etc.