Moral Dilemmas In William Heffernan's Case

William Heffernan faced a few moral dilemmas when he was working as assistant to the District Attorney. One in particular was when he was faced with a moral challenge in the case of a defendant Heffernan presumed to be guilty, but had been denied a fair trial by jury. Heffernan was confronted with the decision of whether or not to challenge an appeal made by the defense so the defendant could have a fair trial by jury. But with a new trial, the defendant stood a chance of winning his trial since the previous witnesses were out of the country. Then a presumed murderer would be free on the streets. Heffernan had to decide if it was his moral obligation to allow the appeal and follow the laws of the court, or if it was more morally responsible to challenge the appeal and make sure the guilty man stayed behind bars. Heffernan was also faced with the additional poor morality of an appellant court that was biased towards the judge’s conviction for political reasons. Heffernan knew that if he challenged the appeal, the appellant court would almost certainly rule in his favor without even considering that the defendant was denied a fair trial. …show more content…
Heffernan makes the decision that he is morally obligated as an attorney to allow the appeal and make sure that the defendant is at least allowed to attempt a fair trial. But as Heffernan predicted, the appellant court ruled in favor of the judge’s previous conviction and the defendant was denied a fair trial and also denied the right to appeal to the highest court of state. Heffernan seems to express remorse over this decision and the morality issues we are currently faced with in our justice