I’ve never understood why some criminal defense lawyers feel the need to make a great public display about how they only represent those whom they believe are truly innocent. There’s a self-indulgent, almost moralistic quality to such declarations that render the lawyers untrustworthy. And hence my problem with Sidney Powell’s otherwise excellent book, Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice (Brown. 2014).
Powell is a former Justice Department lawyer who has, for the past 20 years, devoted her private practice to federal appellate work. Although she has handled upwards of 500 appeals, little of this work, she says, has been on behalf of criminal defendants. Her representation of Jim Brown, a senior Merrill Lynch investment banker convicted of white-collar offenses related to Enron’s implosion, represents a watershed moment late in Powell’s career.
