Why is it witnesses can't lie in court but lawyers can?

This is a question that some people have brought up before. If a witness lies in court, they go to jail for perjury, but lying is a lawyer's first language, and they get to build their career on it. Now I suppose one thing to consider is the fact that lawyers seldom themselves take the stand BUT they present their yarns as if it was a fact, in a court of law, so why shouldn't that count as well? And I know the story everybody's entitled to a fair trial, trials are held to determine guilt or innocence and if you're guilty and your lawyer knows it up front, why should you have the chance to walk free? Of course that's why lawyers DON'T ask if their clients did it or not but it all goes back to truth is not important where a lawyer is involved but it suddenly is when anybody else in the court is.

If two lawyers are arguing a case.....of course they are going to present THEIR side as fact. It's their job to convince the jury to rule in thier favor based on the facts and evidence they provide. Does it make much sense to you to have opposing sides agree with one another? Then what's the point if a prosecution and a defense? I don't know where you are getting this notion that lawyers are allowed to deliberately LIE in hopes of winning a case. A lawyer's job is to.either put doubt in someones case or to prove it didn't happen. Why are you typecasting lawyer's?there are plenty of lawyers who won't even take as case if they feel someone is guilty

The American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct states that a lawyer “shall not knowingly make a false statement of material fact.” In other words, lawyers aren’t supposed to lie--and they can be disciplined or even disbarred for doing so. But notice, the key word here is “knowingly.” A lawyer cannot “knowingly” lie.

Many times a lawyer poses the possibility of what could have happened. This is not lying, it is providing a reasonable doubt. Lawyers cannot allow clients to take the stand and commit perjury either.

if the prosecution does his job, then there shouldnt be any other possible scenarios. if they say "he did it", then the defense shows 3 other people had motive and means, then there is doubt. there is nothing wrong with this.

But the thing of it is a lawyer's job is NOT to get to the truth of the matter, first rule of law school is win the case, there's little room for truth when your whole purpose is just have a better sales pitch than the other guy.

Supernova wrote:But the thing of it is a lawyer's job is NOT to get to the truth of the matter, first rule of law school is win the case, there's little room for truth when your whole purpose is just have a better sales pitch than the other guy.

this is true and can become annoying. for example, a DNA sample proves that someone is the killer, but the test used too much of the sample an now the defense cannot use their own testers. In this instance, the DNA gets thrown out. The killer could walk. However, the law is to protect us from malicious prosecution

Which we're all thankful for but anymore the law works more in the criminals' favor than us law abiding citizens. And all that about letting 100 guilty go free rather than put 1 innocent in jail...in theory it sounds nice, but it's not reality, there are a lot of innocent people in prison AND plenty of guilty people walking free, and even with the new forensics and DNA that can clear a lot of people, it's still never going to be all guilty in and all innocent out.