Recently I was in court for a domestic assault. Buddy slapped his girlfriend around a bit.

The chargers were withdrawn in exchange for him entering into a peace bond, which is essentially a restraining order. It lasts a few months...and then nothing.

So I'm doing all this, and I'm actually pissed off because the original offer was 9 months on the peace bond, and I think that's ridiculous...3 would do. Fast forward to the end, the judge agrees and we are off. And I'm driving home and it all of a sudden strikes me that if I had engaged with this guy in any other venue of my life I would have been appalled by what he had done. If I had read about it in the news, or heard about it through the grape vine, my opinion would have been that he should have had the book thrown at him. If the girlfriend had been one of my friends, or my sister, or myself, I might have done him bodily harm.

It's a weird existance, that of criminal defence. The act exists in a vacuum where there are no victims, no bad guys, and no crime, really. All that exists are facts, and a definition. It's very unemotional...very impersonal. If the facts meet the definition, then you have guilt with a range of possibilities, and if not, then you have not guilt, with a range of possibilities. It's like a mathematical formula, it's like a science, and the players, who are human, are dehumanized.

It's weird though, because I feel as if my inclination to judge morally and ethically the behavior of others is suspended when I am acting in this capacity. It's like there's a buffer between my work, and their actions. The process of evaluating a case is so methodical, and meticulous...it is looking for holes, finding deviations in process...it is finding reasonable doubt and triable issues. And I think that this is right. The purpose of the trial process is to determine facts. I truly believe that this can only be done in an atmosphere that is objective, and unemotional. People say that the justice system spends too much time thinking of the accused, and not enough time thinking of the victim. I understand that this is unsatisfactory for victims...victims who are left with a consequence, and want someone...anyone to pay for that consequence. I don't know. There are some new restorative justice paradigms that are designed to deal with the issue of victims. But that's a subject for another day.