| Thoughts from a Pocono Criminal Defense Lawyer |
| In the 1960s, Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted experiments aimed at measuring everyday people's willingness to perform violent acts against others when told to do so by an authority figure. You may remember the results from psychology class: 65% of participants, obeying the authority figure's orders, inflicted maximum levels of pain on the experimental subject.
Of course, the "subject" was an actor and was never harmed. The participants told to inflict the pain were the real subjects, and their behavior generated a national discussion about obedience, conscience and human conformity.
I bring this up because, as a criminal defense lawyer, I regularly deal with people accused of having made criminal choices. Sometimes my clients are innocent of all wrongdoing; other times, they admit to having done wrong, but want to explain how or why they ended up doing what they did.
How conditions shape our choices remains the object of scientific inquiry, but since the Milgram experiments, we know that most people, under certain conditions, are capable of criminal behavior. An uncomfortable truth, maybe, but a truth nonetheless.
That is why when I look at the case, for example, of the Newfoundland man who recently pled guilty to helping an alleged killer flee, I try to reserve judgment. The man says he didn't know about the crimes at the beginning, and that when he found out he was too scared to stop. Is this the truth? Either way, he deserves to be heard and defended by a competent Pocono criminal defense lawyer.
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Posted By Patrick M. Rogan on January 08, 2010 04:00 am | Permalink  |