Yitz,
1. And it is a defense lawyer’s job to free his client so he is also overzealous by your definition. So are plaintiffs’ and defendants’ lawyers in civil suits. So are insurance adjusters as their job is to lessen the company’s liability. so are actuaries, accountants and just about everybody else. Sorry. Does not hold water.
2. Relevance to the “lower-class” people to whom you referred.
3. The requirement for documentation.
4. Guilty by association? So Joe McCarthy was right?
5. How about something that you can read for yourself? Look up the Gemara in Nida 61a regarding Rabbi Tarfon and the Galileans who were wanted for murder. In any case, it is a sevara. If someone is guilty ofthe crime for which he is imprisoned he is not a captive. He is a criminal being punished for his crime. There was also the case of Rabbi Eliezer b’Rabbi Shimon who turned over thieves for execution (Baba Metzia 63b). See ממה חשש ר’ טרפון? / יעקב צ. מאיר.