Law of Criminal Defense

Ethics Rules

U.S. Ethics Rules:
Model Rules of Professional Conduct (2002, as amended 2007)
States and D.C.:
  ABA link
  Cornell LII link
  Cornell Law Library Ethics Links
  U.S. Territories:
    American Samoa
    Guam
    Northern Mariana Islands (adopting MRPC)
    Puerto Rico (in Spanish; in English on Westlaw)
    U.S. Virgin Islands
ABA Model Rules for Lawyer Disciplinary Enforcement
ABA Model Federal Rules of Disciplinary Enforcement

U.S. Attorneys
  U.S. Attorneys' Manual:
    Title 9 & Title 1
    28 U.S.C. § 530B (ethics for government attorneys)
    28 C.F.R. § 77.1 et seq. (ethics for government attorneys)
    Government Ethics Outline (DoJ Justice Management Division)

Military Courts
  Court of Appeals of the Armed Forces
  Air Force
  Army
  Navy and Marines, 32 C.F.R. Part 776, specifically §§ 776.18-776.71 and JAG Instruction 5803.1B

ABA Standards
  The Defense Function
  Providing Defense Services
  Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Defense Counsel in Death Penalty Cases
Supplementary Guidelines for the Mitigation Function of Defense Teams In Death Penalty Cases
  ABA Opinion 06-441 on indigent defender caseloads
  Guidelines and Standards for Texas Capital Defense Counsel
  The Prosecution Function
  Fair Trial and Free Press
  Special Function of the Trial Judge

Canadian Law Society Rules
  Alberta
  British Columbia
  Manitoba
  New Brunswick
  Newfoundland
  Northwest Territories
  Nova Scotia
  Nunavit
  Ontario
  Prince Edward Island
  Saskatchewan
  Quebec
  Canadian Military Courts (counsel follow the CBA rules, their local law society rules, and the Canadian Forces Code of Ethics)
  Yukon
  Canadian Law Societies
  Canadian Bar Association

International Tribunals
  International Criminal Bar (Organisation—>Official documents—>ICB Code of Conduct and Disciplinary procedure (.pdf & Word); not yet adopted)
  International Criminal Court (not yet adopted)
  International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
  International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
  Special Court for Sierra Leone (Documents; not yet adopted)
  War Crimes Research Portal
  International Criminal Defence Attorneys Association (Defence Watch)
  International Association of Prosecutors (Documentation—>Standards of professional responsibility and statement of the essential duties and rights of prosecutors (English) & "Norma" (Spanish))

Other Ethics Sources
  Cornell Law Library Ethics Links
  LegalEthics.com
  ABA Center for Professional Responsibility
  ABA EthicsSEARCH
  ABA Bookstore
  Lawyers for the Profession, Hinshaw & Culbertson (click on "Alerts")
  IRS Form 8300 (English)
  IRS From 8300 (Spanish)
  26 U.S.C. § 6050I
  FinCEN website

One of Top 100 Criminal Law Blogs

All U.S. Ethics Codes
  State rules
    PR (Eng), PR (Esp.), VI, Guam, CNMI
    State courts
  U.S. Attorney's Manual
  28 U.S.C. § 530B
  28 C.F.R. § 77.1 et seq.
  Military
ABA Standards
Texas DP Counsel Stds
Canadian Law Society Rules
International Tribunal Rules
Other Ethics Sources
IRS Form 8300 (Eng.)
IRS From 8300 (Sp.)
26 U.S.C. § 6050I
NACDL Ethics Opinions

Research Links:
Internet Sleuth
SSRN Legal Ethics & Professional Responsibility
Findlaw (Legal Ethics)
Findlaw (6th Amendment)
ABA/ALI Lawyers' Manual on Professional Conduct $
Westlaw $
Lexis $
American Legal Ethics Library
ABAJournal.com/legalethics
Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics
JD Supra (download legal docs)
USF Law Library Legal Ethics Research
USF Center for Applied Legal Ethics
U.Minn. Researching Legal Ethics

Defense organizations:
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL)
National Legal Aid and Defenders Association (NLADA)
Association of Federal Defense Attorneys (AFDA)
Federal Defenders, fd.org
Capital Defense Network

Law Blogs:
Alaskablawg
ambivalent imbroglio
Am. Constitutional Law Society
Anonymous Lawyer
A Public Defender
Arbitrary and Capricious
Austin Criminal Defense Lawyer
Barely Legal
Blonde Justice
Capital Defense Weekly
Crime & Federalism
Criminal Defense Law
CrimLaw
Criminal Appeal
CrimProf Blog
Dallas Criminal Defense Lawyer
Defending People: The Art and Science of Criminal Defense Trial Lawyering
The Defense Rests
Ernie the Attorney
Grits for Breakfast
idealawg
I'm a PD
INCourts
Indefensible
Indiana Public Defender
Injustice Anywhere
I Respectfully Dissent
Law.com
Law: The Afterlife
Lawyers, Guns & Money
Lawyers with Depression
Legal Blog Watch
Legal Ethics Forum
Legal Humour
Legal Sanity
LegalTimes.com
Life at the Bar
Lowering the Bar
May It Please the Court
Macando Law (P.R.)
Not Guilty No Way
Objective Justice
Obtaining Foreign Evidence
Out of the Box Lawyering
Overlawyered
PhilosophicaLawyer
Public Defender Dude
Public Defender Law Clerk
Public Defender Revolution
PULSE Criminal Justice
Seventh Circuit Blog
Tales of PD Investigator
TalkLeft
ThatLawyerDude
The Best Defense
Truth, Justice, Pizza
Underdog Blog
White Collar Blog
Women of the Law

Steve Dallas, Esq.
Some Advice From Your Public Defender

Lessons Learned (Champion, 1999)
Advice to a Young Criminal Trial Lawyer (blog, 2007)

The Truth About Hiring a Criminal Defense Lawyer (eBook)

"A lawyer shall represent a client zealously within the bounds of the law."
—§ 1:1, Rule 3(a) (not "should" from CPR Canon 7)

"The very premise of our adversary system of criminal justice is that partisan advocacy on both sides of a case will best promote the ultimate objective that the guilty be convicted and the innocent go free."
—Herring v. New York, 422 U.S. 853, 862 (1975)

"The right to the effective assistance of counsel is thus the right of the accused to require the prosecution's case to survive the crucible of meaningful adversarial testing. When a true adversarial criminal trial has been conducted ... the kind of testing envisioned by the Sixth Amendment has occurred. But if the process loses its character as a confrontation between adversaries, the constitutional guarantee is violated."
—United States v. Cronic, 466 U.S. 648, 655-56 (1984)

"The only real lawyers are trial lawyers, and trial lawyers try cases to juries."
—Clarence Darrow

"America was neither founded, nor freed, by the well-behaved."
—Semmes Luckett the younger

"The right to offer the testimony of witnesses, and to compel their attendance, if necessary, is in plain terms the right to present a defense, the right to present the defendant's version of the facts as well as the prosecution's to the jury so it may decide where the truth lies. Just as an accused has the right to confront the prosecution's witnesses for the purpose of challenging their testimony, he has the right to present his own witnesses to establish a defense. This right is a fundamental element of due process of law."
—Washington v. Texas, 388 U.S. 14, 19 (1967)

"[T]he Constitution guarantees criminal defendants 'a meaningful opportunity to present a complete defense.'"
—Crane v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 683, 690 (1986) (quoting California v. Trombetta, 467 U.S. 479, 485 (1984)).

"[O]ur so-called adversary system is not adversary at all; nor should it be. But defense counsel has no comparable obligation to ascertain or present the truth. Our system assigns him a different mission. He must be and is interested in preventing the conviction of the innocent, but, absent a voluntary plea of guilty, we also insist that he defend his client whether he is innocent or guilty. ... [A]s part of our modified adversary system and as part of the duty imposed on the most honorable defense counsel, we countenance or require conduct which in many instances has little, if any, relation to the search for truth."
—Justice White concurring and dissenting in U.S. v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 256-58 (1967)

We, as criminal defense lawyers, are forced to deal with some of the lowest people on earth, people who have no sense of right and wrong, people who will lie in court to get what they want, people who do not care who gets hurt in the process. It is our job–our sworn duty–as criminal defense lawyers, to protect our clients from those people.
—Cynthia Roseberry