General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Trump's lawyers are now ordered to appear before the court by 5 PM on Monday [View all]Ocelot II
(116,003 posts)they've got a dilemma because they don't want to be in the position of suborning perjury. If a lawyer knows his client will lie and can't be talked out of it, the lawyer will probably have to ask the judge for permission to withdraw from representation (outside the hearing of the jury, of course) and to have another attorney appointed. The lawyer can't tell the judge why he wants to withdraw, but the judge will probably figure that out pretty quickly, and if so might (rarely) deny the substitution request. In that event, the lawyer might have to ask to withdraw and have the client proceed on his own. There was a Supreme Court case, Nix v. Whiteside, where the lawyer told his client that if he gave perjured testimony, the lawyer would question him, effectively cross-examining his own client and exposing the lies (the right of a criminal defendant to assistance of counsel is not violated when an attorney refuses to cooperate with the defendant in presenting perjured testimony at his trial).
So, let's watch the fun if Agent Orange does insist on testify in any of his trials. If his lawyers start disappearing suddenly we'll know why.