> The public defender is overworked and understaffed. Having someone dedicated to you in the criminal justice system is a huge advantage--especially if you are guilty.
It's a real shame that the fate of an innocent person's life is determined by a system that's pay to win.
To think that you can lose a massive chunk or maybe even your entire adult life for being falsely accused because your public defender is in a bad mood or doesn't have enough time to look into your case is total insanity.
> It was a sad reminder that the justice system is still very much imperfect, and the outcome of many cases depends heavily on whether you have money to pay attorneys
I’m not sure that’s true. Prosecutors also throw far more resources into cases with expensive private attorneys.
I saw the end results of the process from the appellate side (where the facts are fully developed), and I know lots of public defenders. I think what you’re overlooking is that 99% of those people are facially guilty. The police and prosecutors are lazy, they don’t want to prosecute marginal cases that don’t have rock solid evidence. My wife defended a murder case where they had almost continuous CCTV video of the defendant shooting the victim and driving home to his house. Just one camera angle after the other. And that was a sufficiently exciting case to warrant her big firm getting involved pro bono.
I also see all these ACLU and Innocence Project mailings. Rarely do you see someone who isn’t guilty. Usually the case is about some legal technicality, or some principle such as whether teenagers should be prosecuted as adults or whether gang members involved in a fatal robbery should all be tried for murder when only one pulled the trigger.
So what you’re seeing is the system doing the best it can with this huge volume of obviously guilty people. The public defenders I know are all on the lookout for the rare defendant who might be innocent.
>If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be appointed for you before any questioning if you wish.
Public defenders are notoriously overworked, and are often only allowed a few minutes per case. This is one of many aspects of the justice system that is completely eroded and disproportionately fails the poor.
> Prosecutors try bad cases all the time. They're bloodthirsty inhuman bastards by design.
Agreed.
> But defense attorneys and jury trials have been vilified to the point that even a "socially conscious" show like The Wire portrays Maurice Levy as the bad guy.
While true, this is not the problem.
Private criminal defense attorneys have a horrific reputation, charge through the roof, but are highly competent and get results. Most of them used to be prosecutors and know the system well.
There are really two reasons a budding attorney becomes a prosecutor. Because they aspire to political office or because they want to get into private criminal defense.
Who ends up as public defenders? Idealistic and inexperienced attorneys who are not paid well. This does not bode well for their clients. You really do want somebody who used to play for the other team.
We should abolish public defenders and establish a voucher system where those who cannot afford a private attorney are provided funds to allow them to do so. In the end, it may end up costing use substantially less in tax dollars and get good results for the accused.
> I have a feeling this guilty plea is not actually a "guilty" plea, and more of "let's get it over with."
On what basis did you form this opinion? Presumably more than just the say-so of the accused.
> This isn't how a legal system is supposed to work. You don't take a guilty plea because you run out of money.
But that's not how it works. You have a right to be represented by an attorney. That's why the state and federal governments maintain a system of talented-if-overworked public defenders.
> His defender certainly should have made the same effort the hospitals investigator did.
This is by no means an excuse, but public defenders in many jurisdictions are horrifyingly overwhelmed, overcommitted, and their offices chronically understaffed. I read a report a while ago that said something like a public defender basically just has something on the order of a few hours per defendant to work on their case. (I don't remember the exact number of hours, but it sounded woefully inadequate.)
Again, not an excuse. And the judge seems to share culpability here too. But I can unfortunately see how something like this would happen.
> This is why the public defender's office should be handling the prosecuting of police and the DA should become their defender. You maintain the adversial nature of the current legal system, and you also fund the PD office more effectively. Win win win.
It sounds good on the face of it, but, even assuming that the public defender's office is staffed with amazing defense lawyers, it seems to me that there's no reason to believe that they'll be able to serve as amazing prosecutors.
> I am immediately questioning this depiction that public defenders and prosecutors are on even footing.
I've always assumed, rightly or wrongly, that "the state" has an overwhelming advantage in terms of resources and manpower.
From the letter:
> we live in a society with adversarial court and criminal justice processes I've also assumed that our system of government and burden of proof in criminal cases is also designed to make it harder for the prosecution than for the defendant.
Perhaps this is another case where I'm wrong, but I alway assumed that this was by design. The prosecution has a much higher burden of than the defense.
> but I guess also have some potential for an increase in crime
What? Why?
Public defender might help the innocent stay free. But if you actually did the crime and were caught you're probably still going to jail barring some impropriety being involved.
>Having a public defender represent you when they have hundreds of other cases concurrently is useless.
This could turn into a good thing (for the defendant). Simply argue that the state provided you with incompetent representation and therefore any continued proceedings by the court are unconstitutional.
> Everyone deserves an attorney, not just even when accused of heinous crimes, but especially when accused of heinous crimes.
Yes, but no lawyer should be forced to defend a specific person either. Effective representation requires at least a basic level of trust and communication between client and lawyer - the consistent negative outcomes associated with poor persons unable to afford their own lawyer and being forced to rely on public defenders who are often overworked and underpaid are long known [1] [2], not to mention that unlike e.g. Germany, DAs in the US are not required to also search for evidence that is helpful to the defense.
In the end, issues of payment aside there will always be a lawyer interested in taking on any case - no matter how heinous - simply because of the publicity that showing good work in defending a client will bring.
>maybe we can go with something like a public defender for contract law.
Public defenders for criminal law is something massively broken to the extent that we have innocent people going to prison every day. It is a system to be disgusted at, not attempt to replicate.
> 2. Criminal defense lawyers love the system as-is and will fight to protect it. More arrests mean more business. An absolute worst conflict of interest that you can imagine.
Criminal defense lawyers hate the system as-is. There isn't much money collecting $1,000 here and there convincing people to plead guilty. The criminal lawyers that make the real money are the ones that take big cases to trial. There would be a lot more of that work if the system weren't so stacked in favor of taking a plea deal.
> 3. Public defenders will do the minimum amount of work, and will always strong-arm you to take a plea deal.
Public defenders' offices are incredibly overworked; deal almost entirely with people who are, in fact, guilty; and work within a system where not taking a plea can have very negative consequences in terms of sentencing.
The root of both (2), (3), and (4) is the American public. In many European countries the maximum prison sentence effectively is 15 years, and many don't really have a plea bargaining system. It's not like those countries don't have lawyers who have the same incentives as American lawyers. That's not the difference. The difference is that the people over there are more moral and virtuous, and don't keep voting for politicians who push "tough on crime" and inhumanely-long sentences.
> My suspicion is the Public Defenders’ offices are nearly universally underfunded and overworked, so the only way to make this work is to make sure they’re resourced appropriately, which would be a tough battle politically.
That would be a worthy battle in itself. Public Defenders' offices should be funded as well as criminal prosecutors' offices, and organizationally be (at least) peers of them.
>>90% percent of defendants plead guilty before trial because 90%+ of defendants are actually guilty of the crimes they've been charged with. In most cases, the defendants accept their guilt and are simply trying to get the best deal (i.e., least prison/jail time) as they can.
Except that a disproportionate percentage of poor defendants (who can't afford expensive lawyers) plead guilty before trial because their overworked and underpaid public defenders advise them to.
Logic is that pleading guilty before trial gets you a shorter sentence than going to trial. The alternative is going to trial and being incorrectly found guilty and getting a larger sentence for a crime you didn't commit (your public defender has limited time/resources to make a great case for you).
The American Justice system is particularly unjust to the poor.
> Unfortunately, their job is to minimize the court's time spent spent dealing with their clients.
I think this is the unfortunate reality of them being obligated to take cases even if they don't really have enough defenders. This is an interesting read [1].
The TL;DR of that link is in Montana the head of the public defender's office was held in contempt and fined for refusing too many cases because they don't have the staffing. I don't know what the judge wants them to do, other than providing useless, token representation to clear constitutional requirements. I.e. someone technically has representation, even if that representation doesn't have time to actually form a legal case and can only serve as a liaison for whoever makes the plea deals.
> [Public Defenders'] work is as noble as ours. But we have an obligation to fight like hell on behalf of the People. It should go without saying that this must be done ethically and evenhandedly.
I was on Jury Duty last year and every day I had to walk past a tiny decrepit Public Defender office and then past sprawling, spotless floors of Attorney General offices. I probably have the wrong terms, the specifics are fading, but the general meaning of the signs seemed clear enough. What a shameful disgrace. Society doesn't have a thumb on the scale, it has a foot on the scale.
No, I don't think shifting the extreme imbalance even further towards Prosecution is going to fix crime.
Maybe things are different in Chicago, but I'd want to hear from Defense before just believing a rant from Prosecution.
It's a real shame that the fate of an innocent person's life is determined by a system that's pay to win.
To think that you can lose a massive chunk or maybe even your entire adult life for being falsely accused because your public defender is in a bad mood or doesn't have enough time to look into your case is total insanity.
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