by Kamila Pizon, UWO law

The American criminal justice system is unfairly biased against an accused, Canada’s most renowed criminal defence attorney told Western Law students during a recent lecture on the role of defence counsel in Canadian society.

Eddie Greenspan speaking at Western Law

Eddie Greenspan, who recently defended Conrad Black against mail fraud and obstruction of justices charges in Chicago, described the process of defending an accused in the U.S. as an uphill battle.

“The entire American justice system is warped, tilted against the accused person,” he said, pointing out that US prosecutors are not subject to the same disclosure requirement as their Canadian counterparts. While the Canadian Crown is required to provide an accused with the evidence against them as soon as possible, there is no similar requirement in the U.S., resulting in Greenspan receiving millions of pages of evidence and statements just 60 days before the start of a trial.

Greenspan also listed the strict federal evidence rules and “crushing” sentencing rules as factors contributing to the imbalance. As a result, he said that some people charged with murder in Canada get out faster than Conrad Black will.

Greenspan, who has represented many of Canada’s most famous criminal defendants over the course of his 40 years in law, spoke before a packed lecture hall. His numerous anecdotes and candour drew a warm reaction from the audience.

“There was a movie called [And Justice for All, in which], Al Pacino was cheered by audience in both in theatre and in the movie as he announced that his client, a judge, was guilty. Surely, that’s not a defence lawyer you want,” quipped Greenspan.

Although he injected a healthy dose of humour into the proceedings, Greenspan’s message was a serious one. According to Greenspan, defence lawyers have a vital social role in ensuring a balanced justice system. The defence lawyer “doesn’t merely keep an open mind about the accused, [but] is the accused’s advocate,” he said. “The defence lawyer chooses the occupation voluntarily but doesn’t choose the role. Society defines the role.”

“If you are a criminal lawyer, you stand between the abuse of government power and the individual. If you are a criminal lawyer, you stand between the abuse of judicial power and the individual,” he said, further highlighting the unique role of defence lawyers in the justice system.

Greenspan said that defence lawyers embody the idea of presumption of innocence. They serve fundamental justice not by paying lip service to ideas of abstract justice of objective truth, but by taking the side of their clients.

Accordingly, Greenspan discussed the right to legal representation as a fundamental legal concept, not a matter of choice for defence counsel. “The concept of right to counsel is one of most significant manifestations of respect for the dignity of the person, an absolute right that extends to any person charged with crime,” he said.

“It’s disturbing that law students today want to pick and choose their clients,” Greenspan warned his audience. He likened defence lawyers to doctors in the nature of the service they provide. “I have not time for any legal practitioner who places any limits, other than his or her skills, on the type of cases he or she defends. To me it’s like a medical doctor who refuses, as a matter of principle, to treat someone suffering from syphilis or AIDS.”

Greenspan pointed out that “guilt” is a legal rather than a moral term and each accused has a right to fair trial, no matter hopeless his or her case may be. The defence counsel’s belief in the client may make a world of a difference.

Greenspan’s illustrious career furnished several examples of wrongfully convicted clients. Referring to Donald Marshall, who was wrongfully convicted of murder in the early 1970s, Greenspan said that “if I made a moral judgment [before the trial], I would not have taken it on. No one thought for one second that he was not guilty. We now know he served 11 years for a crime he did not commit.”

Greenspan’s message for legal students is perhaps best captured by a maxim he offered near the end of the lecture. “Let justice be done,” he said. “That is, let justice be done for my client.”

Kamila Pizon is a first-year student at Western Law.
(Reproduced with the permission of the author)