{"id":4556,"date":"2003-08-19T19:39:15","date_gmt":"2003-08-19T23:39:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/formerlyknownas\/2003\/08\/19\/an-honorable-defense-would-ha"},"modified":"2011-08-05T15:00:44","modified_gmt":"2011-08-05T19:00:44","slug":"an-honorable-defense-would-have-been-better-than-zeal-in-virginia-c","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/2003\/08\/19\/an-honorable-defense-would-have-been-better-than-zeal-in-virginia-c\/","title":{"rendered":"An Honorable Defense Would Have Been Better Than Zeal in Virginia Case"},"content":{"rendered":"

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When does a zealous defense tactic become excessive?  SW Virginia Law Blog<\/A> <\/FONT>seems to have found a good example<\/A> today, pointing to a story <\/FONT>in the Coalfield Progress<\/EM>.  (Coalfield.com, “Two women charged in interview with alleged rape victim,” by O’Donna Ramsey, 08-19-03).<\/FONT><\/DIV>
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Blawgger Steve Minor explains that obstruction of justice charges were brought “against two Wise County women for organizing a meeting between an alleged rape victim and the counsel for the defendant<\/U>, who was married to one of the two women.”  The under-aged, mentally disabled victim was interviewed at the home of the accused.  The Coalfield<\/EM> article says the 16-year-old victim functions at the level of a 7 or 8 year-old.<\/U><\/FONT><\/DIV>
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The accused’s lawyer, Stephanie Pease, did not ask the victim’s mother for permission<\/U> to interview the victim.   According to a police representative, such permission is needed to interview a minor.   The local prosecutor is apparently considering whether to press charges against Ms. Pease.<\/FONT><\/DIV>
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According to the article, “On Monday, Pease said she did nothing wrong in interviewing the alleged rape victim without getting permission from the girl’s mother. ‘I do not believe I did anything illegal or unethical,’ she said.”  The article continues (emphasis added):
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Pease said she believes she did not need permission from the girl’s mother since the interview was initiated at the girl’s request.

When asked about Dotson’s comments concerning potential charges, Pease responded, “I’d like to see him try to interfere with my duty to defend my client.”<\/U>  Pease said she has an ethical obligation to her client to defend him, and she believes she did nothing wrong. The attorney said she is angry Dotson would even suggest charges, or that there was impropriety on her part.

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On July 7, 2003, we did a posting<\/A> here <\/FONT>about changes to the lawyer ethics rules that have taken effect in Arizona, replacing the concept of “zealous representation” with “honorable representation.”  The Coalfield<\/EM> article suggests that the Arizona message needs to reach that corner of Virginia.<\/FONT><\/DIV><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When does a zealous defense tactic become excessive?  SW Virginia Law Blog seems to have found a good example today, pointing to a story in the Coalfield Progress.  (Coalfield.com, “Two women charged in interview with alleged rape victim,” by O’Donna Ramsey, 08-19-03).   Blawgger Steve Minor explains that obstruction of justice charges were brought “against two Wise […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2926],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pre-06-2006"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kP1R-1bu","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4556"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14175,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4556\/revisions\/14175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}