you still have lawyers in the US who are willing to blame the child
Well yes, that's the defense attorney. Their job is to try to present the evidence that paints the defendant in the best light. And some times, that means casting doubt on the victim in ways that moral people find reprehensible.
You've got to understand, legal ethics and normal human ethics are very different things. And one of the basic duties of a defense attorney is to try to present any argument that, if accepted by the finder of law (the judge) or the finder(s) of fact (the jury, usually) will cause them to view the defense in a more favorable way, and the argument isn't legally frivolous (a high bar), the defense is allowed to make that argument. Trials are full of these "hail Mary" motions all the time. I've filed motions that I know had less than a 1% chance of being accepted, but I did so anyways because if they were, we would automatically win. Why do lawyers try arguments that, to any reasonable person, shouldn't work? Because jury trials require a unanimous verdict (
as recently confirmed by the Supreme Court) and a single juror can "hang" the verdict if they refuse to side with everyone else. This results in no guilty verdict and no not-guilty verdict, meaning that double jeopardy doesn't apply and the prosecutor can have another swing. Trying to perpetually hang the jury until the prosecutor gives up is an extremely risky tactic, but keep in mind: juries are not always made up of the smartest or most moral people. And if you want to hang the jury, you only need one person holdout. An associate of mine was on a murder jury that almost hung despite overwhelming evidence because, in regards to the defendant, "the bastard had it coming."
Granted, this isn't a tactic chosen by a lawyer and client who have a lot going for them: this is a last gasp desperation play when both the facts and the law are bearing down on you. It's a less refined version of defending someone on trial for murdering their parents by saying "Take pity on my client, he has just become an orphan." Also, most jurors find such an argument repellent. If someone were to make that argument to me to justify their actions, it would cause an internal crisis while I wondered "is hanging too good for them?" But, if it's almost certain that your client will be convicted anyway, and this argument has a non-zero chance of working, it doesn't shock me that people will try. Nor does this raise any legal ethical issues.
Now, on the topic of whether or not this sort of argument
should be allowed, that's another issue entirely. Before rape shield laws, the victim's sexual past was fair game and defense attorneys would go after that like sharks at a feeding frenzy. This was eventually changed. One could certainly make the case that a law that restricted arguments that tried to blame underage victims (or any victims) for their own assault is a logical extension of such law. I think the pros and cons of it could be fairly debated, keeping in mind that the defense is entitled to try to rebut any assertion the prosecution or its witnesses make. But until such time as a law like that is passed, you're of course going to get lawyers who will make desperation plays like that.
To sum it up, the problem isn't lawyers who are willing to make these arguments, the problem is that in an adversarial system of justice, the defense is entitled to make arguments that may seem ridiculous but have at least a small amount of legal merit.
USA
