My experience with defense lawyers is their objective is to get their client off, not present the truth in a court of law.
or that could be re-written:
My experience with prosecuting lawyers is their objective is to get their accused found guilty, not present the truth in a court of law.
Aterpster - I'd like to think that we were having a discussion about how we stop this sort of event from re-occurring. I thought we had moved on from -
The late captain at issue was grossly negligent. Had he survived he would have been criminally prosecuted in many countries, as well as he should been.
You are wrong. Here's why. Let's say the guy emerged from the smoking hole in the ground totally unscathed. And then you get your way and they guy is prosecuted by the judicial system. You just tell me why he would help with his own prosecution? If that were you, I'd suggest you'd say nothing to convict yourself. I certainly wouldn't, even if innocent lest my comments were misinterpreted by some scumbag lawyer. Yet your testimony would be the most valuable thing for the investigation team. Now let's stick him in prison until he rots. We've just punished the guy - well you can say "That's justice!" But have YOU done ANYTHING to prevent this from re-occurring? No, you've just clumsily nailed up a sign that says "Trespassers will be shot!" Now, whenever there's any sort of incident, CVR/FDR's will "malfunction", paperwork will be shredded, crews will bugger off out of the country or hide away and become "sick" etc. Redneck justice deals only with pain, there is no gain.
What the investigators who wrote this report were trying to achieve was to understand the human factors that drove this crew into doing what they did. For this they should be commended.
PM