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30 Loy. L. A. L. Rev. 33 (1996-1997)
Responsibilities of a Criminal Defense Attorney

handle is hein.journals/lla30 and id is 61 raw text is: RESPONSIBILITIES OF A CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY Plato Cacheris* The reasons one chooses to join the legal profession are as varied as the many disciplines within the profession. Criminal de- fense, however, is the one field that deals with the life and liberty of individuals. While torts, securities, wills, estates, probate, tax, environmental law, and regulatory practices of every imaginable description are of utmost importance to clients, they lack the im- pact on individuals unique to criminal defense practice. Criminal law's focus upon the individual's liberty is what has driven me to this profession. As a federal prosecutor many years ago, I found myself con- cerned even then about the consequences of prosecution upon the defendant, the defendant's family, and the defendant's life. I served in a court where the judges discouraged sentencing recom- mendations from the prosecutor. This was, of course, in an era be- fore sentencing guidelines. Accordingly, in my eight years as a prosecutor, I made very few sentencing recommendations to judges. The passage of sentencing guidelines has dramatically changed the practice of criminal law. At one time, defense lawyers could appeal to judges for leniency on various grounds, such as social status, ethnic background, family, health, education, and hardship.' Such sympathetic appeals to judges have now been * Plato Cacheris is a partner in the firm of Cacheris & Treanor in Washington D.C. He is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, and the American Board of Criminal Lawyers. He has represented former Attorney General John Mitchell in the Watergate prosecution, Congressman Ozzie Myers in the ABSCAM prosecution, Dr. David Davoudlarian in a civil murder trial, and Fawn Hall in the Iran-Contra Hearings. 1. Prior to adoption of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, the Supreme Court stated that a judge may appropriately conduct an inquiry broad in scope, largely unlimited either as to the kind of information he may consider, or the source from which it may come. United States v. Tucker, 404 U.S. 443, 446 (1972); see also, Al- bert W. Alschuler, Sentencing Reform and Prosecutorial Power: A Critique of Recent Proposals for Fixed and Presumptive Sentencing, 126 U. PA. L. REV. 550, 557

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