Cops Don´t Deserve a Defense?

Tell a criminal defense lawyer that your client is accused of child rape, and that during the rape, an 8 year old had her vaginal wall torn.  He won´t blink.  He´ll probably make a joke.  Tell him you´re representing a cop, and suddenly he gets righteous: 

"What's the matter with you?" The speaker is a good friend and a well-known member of the criminal defense bar. "Why are you representing people like that?"

He was calling into question my representation of a former police officer. The cop was fired from his police force after being videotaped pummeling a man during an arrest. We entered a guilty plea to misdemeanor assault and no jail time last week. After the guilty plea, the client's former employer released the videotape to the press. Then all Hell broke lose. More than 100 newspapers and television stations have either run the video or commented on the case.

First of all, representing a child pervert is as bad as it gets.  You really want to tell me that beating some criminal after a high speed chase is worse than raping a kid.  Really?

Second, why don´t cops deserve representation?  I´m as guilty as anyone of saying, I hate cops.  I hate being subjected to anyone´s authoritas.  It´s overbroad to say that we should hate cops, though.

I could live a life without cops.  I´d be a barbarian.  That´d be workable.

Still... It´s sort of nice to have cops, since it gives me time to read books and look at art and drink Muscle Milk and take helpful drugs and supplements.  There´s a reason you don´t get much science out of Rwanda.  Savages kill the weak.  Nerds are weak, and nerds give us science and stuff like the Kindle 2.  Without cops, we wouldn´t have much high culture.  We probably wouldn´t even have flush toilets or toilet paper.  And you could forget about Viagra.

So before deciding to hate all cops, think about the niceties of civilization.