Wrongful incarceration.

I really wanted to weigh in on the ongoing controversy of gay adoptions (which I'm strongly against), but so much has been said about that that I thought I would take this opportunity to take issue with the letter writer who thinks that we, as lawyers, should ante up in cases involving "wrongful incarceration."

I have been a criminal defense lawyer my whole adult life. I now find myself defending the state, which is not something that I like to do publicly or on a regular basis, but so much of this politically correct line of thinking is prevalent in our present day culture of victimization (where everybody's a victim, everyone's entitled to something, no one's accountable, and it's always somebody else's fault), that I am compelled to speak. I'd like to remind the writer that ours is an adversarial system of justice. The state attorney charges people with crimes where their investigation indicates that a crime has been committed. It's up to the defense to present defenses. Presumably, there's a judge in the mix somewhere who makes sure everyone's playing by the rules and a jury decides whether the state's case measures up to the legal standard of proof.

Now I'm not familiar with the facts of this particular case, but it's not my fault that this man got convicted and went to...