I also remember reading about a criminal defence attorney who did not handle cases involving sex crimes.
Apparently he was fine with defending murder suspects, but not suspects charged with even street groping. Or Gerard Spong's statement of being willing to defend anyone charged with anything, except Dési Bouterse; there are certainly worse military dictators on the planet.
Yeah we're not really physically different from humans who thought sacrificing people to the sun was the sensible thing to do... we've got an infinite amount of things to believe
An attorney? I've had a hard time finding any attorney (not in US) for my grand-uncle who groped an underage girl on the street. Almost everyone refused, despite my request was only to get any information about the case^ and where it may possibly go, not the actual defense. The person who agreed to help said they wouldn't do it too, but they were asked by people they couldn't say no to. (Uncle ended up in an asylum deemed mentally unfit, freeing my family from making hard decisions about his action.)
^ e.g. checking whether that could be a setup, a misunderstanding or an overreaction to an innocent/unconscious action; it wasn't any of that.
How very strange. — In many jurisdictions defence attorneys do not have a right to refuse any case they are competent in and timewise available for, something I approve of.
In my country, default defense attorneys work ~together with a prosecution side, they basically fill in process-required papers and read the characterization aloud, that's it. No one of them would help me to understand the situation until it's potentially too late, in case of some sort of fabrication or pressure, which I suspected. They wouldn't refuse, they are just useless. I had to look for a lawyer on the "market" side of it, who brought me right to the investigation office head. Through that I learned the facts and future options to discuss them with my family. Yes, they hesitate to take these cases without even trying to hear details, but are happy to defense murderers. It's unfair legal-wise, because many such allegations recently became unfair and tv-popular, so no one is insured from it.
Regrettably, the situation is more complex than simply having personal moral qualms about representing an alleged sexual assailant. In a jurisdiction without a shield law, the attorney rules of professional conduct may effectively require you to argue that the victim was asking for it.
