"Mike Tyson is a celebrity that would be an unpopular defendant," Mr. Shapiro said.

The difficult thing is to defend those who are unpopular or and-social defendants.

"Juries are permitted to target unpopular defendants, penalize unorthodox or controversial views, and redistribute wealth," she complained.

Through this indictment, the government is trying to prevent lawyers from zealously representing unpopular defendants.

An unwillingness to provide adequate money for lawyers to represent unpopular defendants has led to a large number of appealable mistakes, according to judges and prosecutors.

The unpopular defendant is always fair game when society gets serious about policy.

Representing unpopular defendants is a familiar role for Mr. Weber, who has built a career of representing "the clients the underdogs want to root against," as he calls them.

Mr. Katz was known for representing unpopular defendants in politically charged cases.

"If hard cases make bad law, then the Tyson case proves that unpopular defendants often receive bad justice," Dershowitz writes.

A defense lawyer who throughout her career has represented an array of radical and unpopular defendants pleaded guilty last night to an eight-year-old charge of refusing to testify about a client.