Getting started...

Lord Thomas Erskine was the lawyer who defended Thomas Paine (unsuccessfully) for sedition. Paine's writings were the philosophical basis for the American Revolution, and did not endear him to the English Crown. What he said about that reminds me of why I keep fighting for the rights of people who Really Should Have Had More Sense Than to Do That:



"I will forever, at all hazards, assert the dignity, independence, and integrity of the English Bar, without which impartial justice, the most valuable part of the English Constitution, can have no existence.
"From the moment that any advocate can be permitted to say that he will or will not stand between the Crown and the subject in the court where he daily sits to practise, from that moment the liberties of England are at an end.
"If the advocate refuses to defend, from what he may think of the charge or of the defense, he assumes the character of the judge; nay, he assumes it before the hour of judgment; and, in proportion to his rank and reputation, puts the heavy influence of, perhaps, a mistaken opinion into the scale against the accused, in whose favor the benevolent principle of English law makes all presumptions, and which commands the very judge to be his counsel."



Anyway, I'm going to try this blogging thing with random thoughts from a history buff who practices criminal defense law to earn a living.