Lawyer's character

After walking out of the detention center, Qian Wen was silent and just followed Fang Yi silently.

"I sympathize with Xiao Wang." Qian Wen suddenly said after getting in the car.

"Well, having sympathy means that you are not numb yet and will be a good lawyer." Fang Yi glanced at Qian Wen after starting the car.

In fact, he only said half of the sentence, and the second half of the sentence in his heart was: However, overflowing sympathy is not necessarily a good thing for a lawyer, especially a criminal lawyer, because sympathy will make you lose your judgment and disrupt your logic. thinking ability.

If Wang Deyou or Mei Xiaoting was sitting next to him, Fang Yi would definitely tell the whole story, but as for Qian Wen, he could only go so far.

For such a profession that requires both insight into human nature and rich experience, as well as preventing self-loss, Qian Wen is still too young, and society is too complicated!

"Well, thank you!" Qian Wen nodded: "Lawyer Fang, do you think Xiao Wang will be sentenced to death? What I mean is that after he was brought to justice, he cooperated with the police investigation. Can we use this as a breakthrough and ask the court to give him a lighter sentence or Reduce the punishment!”

This was Qian Wen's first criminal case. She felt that she should do something. She didn't want to just go through the procedures and watch the client being sentenced to death. To put it bluntly, she wanted to stand by and not be a bystander.

"We can defend him like this, but based on the circumstances of the case, the court will most likely not accept it and will still sentence him to death." Fang Yi said.

"Why?" Qian Wen turned to look at Fang Yi.

“According to Article 232 of the Criminal Law, anyone who intentionally kills someone shall be sentenced to death, life imprisonment, or fixed-term imprisonment of not less than ten years; if the circumstances are relatively minor, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than ten years.

Have you noticed that Article 232 of the Criminal Law is listed in order from severe punishment to light punishment? Do you know what this means? "Fang Yi asked.

Qian Wen looked confused, shook his head and said, "I don't know."

"This means that the crime of intentional homicide is a very serious crime that infringes on citizens' personal rights and must be severely cracked down. Therefore, in judicial practice, when sentencing criminals who commit intentional homicide, the court will first consider the severe sentence, and then When severe punishment is not applicable, the next best option is light punishment. So I speculate that the court will most likely sentence Xiao Wang to death," Fang Yi explained.

"Oh, so that's what happened!" Qian Wen was enlightened, and then he wondered: "Would this lead to a mechanical application of the law? This is a human life! And the victim was at fault first."

"What you said makes sense. It is true that some judges judge cases in such a rigid and mechanical manner, but not all judges are like this.

Holmes, do you know this guy? "Fang Yi asked.

Qian Wen shook his head: "When I was in college, all I read were laws and textbooks. Other than that, I basically didn't read anything related to majors. Of course, I made an exception when I was writing my graduation thesis."

"Well, I read Holmes's "The Road to Law" when I was a graduate student, and it was very inspiring to me. Holmes said that lawyers should start from the perspective of a 'bad guy', study the law, figure out the judge, and then guide the client how to Avoid legal punishment.

Of course, the "bad guys" here are legal bad guys, bad guys who wander on the edge of the legal red line. Their "badness" is moral. In fact, if you look carefully, you can see many such bad guys.

Not only that, "The Way of Law" belittles the formalistic legal thinking that is superstitious in logic and turns it into useless. "Fang Yi chatted.

"Is the formalism you're talking about the kind of formalism we often see online? In fact, the higher-ups are also opposed to formalism." Qian Wen didn't say it clearly, but Fang Yi understood what she meant by formalism.

“What Holmes calls legal formalism is not just superficial formalism, but also includes treating law as a closed deductive system like European geometry.

In fact, I think the law is a rule based on common cognition. As time changes and people's common cognition changes, the law should be revised with the times. This kind of thing is definitely not the rule of several legal schools. Experts can handle it, but credibility and social development must also be considered.

But for us lawyers, I think Holmes’s words about lawyers are still very practical. If we lawyers want to gain a firm foothold, it is definitely not as simple as getting a certificate or reciting legal provisions. I can forget everything in the school books, but I dare not stop thinking about how to solve problems, because the ability to solve problems is the core competitiveness of lawyers. "Fang Yi said.

"How to deal with conflicts between law and morality?" Qian Wen looked at Fang Yi doubtfully, wanting to hear his opinion.

“What is legal does not necessarily meet ethical standards, and what is ethical does not necessarily mean it is legal.

Let's take a more extreme example. You can see that in many Chinese and foreign novels, there are plots where the male protagonist avenges his mother or father, but no reader will say that the male protagonist did something wrong, or call him bloody, or even be respected by others. , such as the Zhang Koukou case.

This is the moral standard in the minds of the public. But is this behavior legal? From a legal perspective, it is illegal.

Therefore, there is no need for lawyers to care about the relationship between law and morality. I think what lawyers should consider is how to exempt the client from legal punishment or reduce punishment.

As for morality, you can use it to defend the client, but don’t place your hopes on it. The judge may agree with the moral standards stated by the defender, but the judge will not use morality as the basis for deciding the case. "Fang Yi said.

Qian Wen didn't expect that Fang Yi would have so many ideas in his mind. It seemed that he was not suitable for criminal cases. If he had the chance, he might as well follow Ma Yi or Lao Huang to do civil cases, at least the risks would be less.

"I'm just stating my opinion, but we still have to defend those who should defend. If the judge has other ideas, maybe we can save Xiao Wang's life." Fang Yi encouraged.

The next morning, not long after Fang Yi and Qian Wen came back from the court to review the papers, Peng Huayan brought her sister-in-law Liu Fangzhi to the law firm.

Peng Huayan's brother rarely talked about work matters with his wife Liu Fangzhi, so Liu Fangzhi knew little about the case. She had gone to the detention center to meet with a local lawyer before. The information Peng Huayan knew was what she heard from the lawyer, and the case was quickly transferred to the detention center. In the court, Liu Fangzhi was a person without any opinion. At this time, she was already panicking and didn't know what to do, so she had to ask her sister-in-law Peng Huayan for help.

After Liu Fangzhi completed the entrustment procedures with Zhou Ying's assistance, Fang Yi sent the two of them out of the law firm.

Xiao Wang's case was handed over to Qian Wen, and Fang Yi saved a lot of energy and freed up time. He started to meet with the Lu Provincial Detention Center, and then made an appointment with the prosecutor to discuss the case and set a time for the court to review the case.