Stephanie Herseth Sandlin: “in the law we have a doctrine called the ``clean hands doctrine.'' Courts express it by saying he who seeks equity must…”

“in the law we have a doctrine called the ``clean hands doctrine.'' Courts express it by saying he who seeks equity must do equity. We have seen precious little equity today. First, our friends want to reveal plaintiffs' fees and what they receive, but when we ask to reveal the exorbitant fees of the corporate attorneys and insurance attorneys and defense attorneys, they said no. I have got a question: What are you hiding? What are you hiding? You said the recovery in Cheerios is not enough. You forgot to tell us that the expensive litigation is between the insurance companies. The defendants have been indicted, tried and sent to prison. You are outraged that the plaintiffs have received too little money in one case, but there is absolutely no outrage in your position when a major American company, Nestle, put sugar water in bottles and sold it to American mothers to give to children. You got no outrage in that, other than the attorneys got paid. Well, surely, surely you can support legislation that says if you destroy evidence, if you commit a crime, if you do things that you are not supposed to do, you do not get the benefit of the law. If you commit a crime, you do not have clean hands. If you destroy evidence, you do not get the benefit of the legislation. Surely you can support something as clean as that.”