Every criminal defense attorney gets the question that Wolf Blitzer of CNN asked John Galligan the defense attorney for Major Nidal Hasan. How can you represent that guy? The short answer is because we took an oath to support the Constitution of the United States. Under the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution, everyone who is charged by the government with a crime is guaranteed the assistance of an attorney. Specifically it says, "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence." The first thing you should notice is that the Constitution says "in all criminal prosecutions..." We don't make exceptions for the really guilty or the terrible or even the one who is hate filled. Major Nidal Hasan is accused by the state of 13 counts of murder. Under the Sixth Amendment as a U.S. citizen he gets all of the rights guaranteed to any citizen. The public should not mistake a criminal defense attorney's representation of a particular criminal defendant with an endorsement of any actions he may have taken. The lawyer does not by representing the client thereby agree with the client's motives or actions.
When you stop and consider how difficult it would be to represent someone accused of such an awful crime, the easiest thing to do would be to decline to represent such a defendant. You have to deal with arguments like that made by Blitzer. "I'm sure he will get a much fairer hearing than those 13 Americans who were brutally gunned down the other day. I'm sure he will get all of the rights that are applied by the military code of justice." Yes he will. Denying him the rights guaranteed to U.S. citizens under the Constitution would not change anything to favor the 13 Americans tragically killed. However, it would change things for all of the rest of us. The majority of the 13 killed were active duty military who also took an oath to defend the Constitution. They died defending the very document that gives Major Hasan the rights he now "enjoys". This is where the rubber meets the road on whether we believe what we say about defending the Constitution. How many other brave Americans have died to give you, me, Major Hasan and all Americans the rights guaranteed by the Constitution? So Wolf it would be a disservice to all of our veterans to give Major Hasan anything less than his full Constitutional rights.
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