Originally Posted by
eschatological
I'm a 6' big brown man with a beard. When I was studying to be a trial lawyer, I took a class in my last year of law school called Trial Practice. It was all about practicing in-courtroom tactics and practices. We were assigned to partner up and practice direct examinations and cross examinations with your partner playing the witness. I partnered with a good friend of mine, who was a 5'1", petite blonde girl named Dawn from Dallas, Texas. The minute I approached her on the stand, our professors were like, "No, don't do that."
"Why?" I asked. And he said, "You're a big dude, she's a small blonde lady. It'll be seen as intimidating by any jury." And my friend said, "Awww, but he's a giant softie!" To which the professors said something to the effect of: it doesn't matter what I am, it matters how they'll see me. In my career, I've never approached a woman on the stand, for that reason.
U.S. law is different from Canadian and European law - we have an adversarial system, as opposed to a civil system. It's kind of a capitalist theory of justice: if the two sides go gung ho in the defense/prosecution of a defendant, this competitiveness will balance out to the "better, more valid" side winning the competition. Meanwhile, in the classical European civil system, both defense and prosecution work for the Court, and are managed by the judge. The defense is there to make sure the rights of the defendant aren't violated, but otherwise is working hand in hand to find the truth of the matter.
American jurisprudence supporters suggest the adversarial system offers more rights to defendants (because they literally do get to throw shit at the wall in order to sow reasonable doubt) and thus more protection for defendants, but it's obviously not true. Because in a competition if one side has more resources, they're gonna have a leg up in the competition. When it's a public defender vs. an ADA, the ADA has more resources, and can dictate the competition. When the defense is private, and can throw 12 paralegals at one case and bury the prosecution in paper, they have the leg up in the competition.
It's obviously broken, and should be changed - but I don't blame a defense attorney for literally playing by the rules set up by the system to get the best possible outcome for their client. The first rule of legal ethics is to be a zealous advocate for your client. The second rule is to not lie or obstruct justice. But then again, maybe I'm biased as a former public defender.