Rex Butler: Turning Alleged Rape Victims Into Casualities

It's always nice to know what kind of company people are keeping. Meet the attorney for Levi Johnston and others who have filed ethics complaintsagainst Sarah Palin - link: Rex Butler. Read more about Butler and his PI Tank Jones ... at Conservatives4Palin. Butler appears to be the Al Sharpton of Anchorage in a sense and has been anti-Palin for years.

Sure, it's within the law and he's said to be competent. Sowhat if when he isn't representing people attacking Sarah Palin he makes his money trying to turn alleged 15 year-old rape victims into "casualties" who look like liars, whether they are, nor not? Everyone has to make a living, right?

In 1989, Butler represented one of four young men accused of raping a 15-year-old girl. Then it was discovered that the girl lied about some events during her testimony. Prosecutors offered a mistrial. Butler refused. “I want her to recant before the jury with that same straight face,” Butler said, according to another press account. “And we want to be able to cross-examine her now.”

In the end, one of the four young men went free and the other three pleaded no contest to a minor assault charge each.

“Some cases you can’t win at all,” Butler says now. “You like to take off the head, though, if you can — i.e., the biggest charge — so you’re left with the smaller charges. Sometimes in this business, you can’t win the big one, but you can knock ’em down…

“The rules say you have the right to be zestful and to defend with zeal. To me, defending with zeal means creating casualties. When you can get up there and you can make a person look like they’re lying, it doesn’t matter if they’re truly lying or not. Let’s be real about it. If you can make them look like they’re lying, or even feel like they’re lying, you’re creating casualties. That’s what you have to do sometimes to win.”

As if an alleged teen-aged rape victim probably isn't enough of a casualty already.

Comments

[Steven Den Beste]

I think I don't agree with you here.

I remember seeing an interview one time with a prominent defense attorney. He was asked how he could defend rapists and murderers and do his best to get them off.

I thought his answer was excellent. He said, You don't understand how the system works. Justice isn't my job. That's the job of the judge and jury. My job is to be an advocate for my client. The system depends on me being an advocate for acquittal, and on the prosecutor being an advocate for conviction.

If defense attorneys only represented clients they thought were innocent, then they would be usurping the function of the criminal justice system, substituting their own judgment of clients for that of the judge and jury.

That's why I don't condemn Johnnie Cochran for getting OJ off. It was Cochran's job to be the best advocate he could be for OJ, and since the LA Police botched up the case, OJ should have walked. And he did.

Likewise, this Butler guy. His job was to do his best to get his client off, no matter whether the client was guilty or not, and no matter whether Butler believed his client was guilty or not. And it sounds like he did do so.

If the prosecution screws up, as appears to have been the case, then Butler is professionally obligated to take advantage of that for his client. Accepting a mistrial would have been wrong. Because it would have meant his client would have been tried again, and maybe convicted the second time.

If I'm ever arrested, I want a lawyer like Butler representing me. Because he will represent ME, not some higher conception of justice.

[Dan Riehl]

"I think I don't agree with you here."

We don't disagree so much, Steven. I understand and accept the way the system works. It has to be that way. However, I still think there's a point to be made.

This guy also has a long standing political vendetta against Palin. He's linked to more than one person filing the bogus ethics complaints. While there's a defense for his courtroom tactics, Palin stands accused of no crime. If anything, he's facilitating a prosecutorial witch hunt in that sense.

Also, Johnston's Mother was supposedly broke. But she ends up with this high priced lawyer? I wonder who is paying the bill? If he's a part of the democrat's political war against Palin, his ethics can be questioned in that regard. And we already know he's capable of using whatever tactics he deems necessary for his purposes.

Is he trading lawyering for help in trying to smear Palin? That's another question, it seems to me.

[Steven Den Beste]

But none of that has anything to do with his performance in that rape case.

[Dan Riehl]

I'm not sure of your response, Steven. I'm not saying it does directly. All I'm saying is, if he's capable of trying to make a casualty out of an alleged teen rape victim, is he also capable of inciting people to file spurious ehtics complaints against a sitting governor, because he believes his cause to be just?

He wouldn't be breaking the law in any case.

[mark l.]

http://pview.findlaw.com/view/2758854_1

apparently rex is one the four black men living in alaska. That's got to be a strange coincidence=palin ran against a black man.

nice of him to post a pic, with his phone number and email.

I'll have to give him a call and ask him how his kids are doing.

hate to see the guy get spammed.

[Steven Den Beste]

Dan, most of your post is about that rape case. But in that rape case, as described, Butle acted ethically and professionally. If he HADN'T been willing to "make that girl a casualty" he would have been failing his client.

What I'm trying to say is that your main piece of evidence against Butler doesn't prove anything, because any competent and conscientious defense attorney would have done exactly the same thing.

[Lala]

Rape cases are not like any others. This case was in 1989. When did the rules change whereby rape victims would not be asked about their sexual history? That is very important because rape victims were being put on trial just as much as the alleged perp leading to women (and I know some) not reporting rapes.

[Ergo]

And then, of course, you have the women that report rape falsely, destroy the lives of the men accused, and, more often than not, walk away from the wreckage with nary a scratch on them, so pardon some of us if we don't automatically side with the 'victim'. In such cases, we would really prefer to have some sort of shark-like, subhuman, lawyer keeping us (and what's left of our reputations) out of jail.

[Dan Riehl]

Your points are fair ones, Steven. But then, isn't it a part of why lawyers are often all but hated by the general pulic until they need one? ; )

[Wholesale]

Informative blog, the comments display public involvement