The billboard shows a smiling lawyer with a polka dot bow-tie in front of a courthouse with an American flag flying in the background. Bold print proclaims, \u201cJust Because You Did It Doesn\u2019t Mean You\u2019re Guilty\u201d.<\/p>\n
Really?<\/p>\n
When I look at the message on attorney Larry L. Archie\u2019s Greensboro, North Carolina, billboard, I have to wonder what was in the good lawyer\u2019s mind. Is he making some deep philosophical point that I\u2019m missing? Or does he mean exactly what his words seem to say?<\/p>\n
The message of the billboard seems to be that whether or not you have committed a crime doesn\u2019t really matter. The important thing is that a good lawyer (like Mr. Archie) can get you off. So, even if you did it, don\u2019t worry about it. Let\u2019s get together and work on making sure you\u2019re never held accountable for what you did.<\/p>\n
Can this really be what Larry Archie meant to communicate? I understand that the purpose of the ad is to drum up business, and Mr. Archie is a criminal defense attorney. And I understand that everyone deserves their day in court, with competent legal representation, whether they actually committed a crime or not.<\/p>\n
But have we as a society really come to the place where we are ok with attorneys advertising to criminals that committing crimes isn\u2019t a problem if you have a good lawyer to get you off?
\n Woe to men … who justify the wicked for a bribe, and take away justice from the righteous man!
\nIsaiah 5:22-23 (NKJV)
\nI\u2019m guessing that nobody pointed out to Larry Archie the moral and ethical ramifications of his message before it was put up on a billboard for all the world to see. Of course, there\u2019s the possibility that he wouldn\u2019t be concerned about such things anyway, but I won\u2019t make that assumption.<\/p>\n
Instead, I hope that now that the billboard is up, Mr. Archie will see his message with different eyes, and that billboard won\u2019t stay up. If it does, that will say a lot about Larry L. Archie as a person \u2013 and about us as a society.<\/p>\n
________<\/p>\n
One commenter suggested the billboard may not be as slimy as it appears – “Legally, someone could have done some misdeed but not be criminally liable. The best example is someone legally insane committing a homicide. There are other legal defenses such as duress that could be applicable.” The blog author doubted this is what the lawyer’s billboard was trying to convey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The billboard shows a smiling lawyer with a polka dot bow-tie in front of a courthouse with an American flag flying in the background. Bold print proclaims, \u201cJust Because You Did It Doesn\u2019t Mean You\u2019re Guilty\u201d. Really? When I look at the message on attorney Larry L. Archie\u2019s Greensboro, North Carolina, billboard, I have to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3543,3541,3542,207,268,1679,1190],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6055"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6055\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}