Policy and Ethics

From your reading in Chapter 1, we have learned that the public manager often will have to juggle interests and priorities.  Sometimes, one’s personal ethics might conflict with a professional ethical demand.  For instance, I am an attorney.  If I am defending someone that I believe is guilty of raping someone, I might personally think this person needs to spend the rest of his life in prison with no possibility of parole.  As his attorney, I have a professional obligation to defend this person as rigorously as possible.  If the police or prosecutor commit an error, it is my job to point this out, even if this would mean my client gets to walk away a free person.  Our criminal justice system absolutely does not work if people are not presumed innocent, and if they do not get competent representation.  Many people don’t see the bigger picture that our public defenders, and yes, even those “reprehensible” private defense attorneys are crucial in our democratic system. This same kind of professionalism rests with our public administrators as well.