Re: When do or should customs trump law?
 

Care to elaborate?

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This is problematic for me just to the extent that it interferes with focusing on the issues that actually matter.


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This sentence piques my curiosity. Who is losing the focus, and in what way, and how does it impede? Are your clients refusing to cooperate or be frank with you, perhaps, thinking it really doesn't matter and that everyone should just get the bribing over with? Just trying to pin down your meaning.

Re: When do or should customs trump law?
 

Blarg,

This is an example of what I meant. I mentioned in another thread that I just finished a trial where my client was accused of conspiring to import weapons. He happens to be from the Republic of Georgia. He sincerely believed that President Bush had something to do with selecting him as a defendant, and he also believed that if we could pressure the State Department through his consulate that the charges would be dropped.

I found that his point of view complicated my job because it distracted him when I wanted to talk about how to prepare for the trial. And his overriding interest in politics meant that he was not likely to be a good witness.

Another example: At one point a couple of years ago, I came close to representing a person involved in smuggling Chinese nationals to this country. Part of the process was to force the immigrants to work for them after they arrived here, as a form of payment.

The defendant really had some difficulty viewing his conduct as anything other than an acceptable business deal. And that is the way that he hoped to argue his case, even though such an argument would have no chance of success.