Imagine you are responsible for providing legal representation for indigent people in your state (the public defender's office). Seven years ago, a request for additional funding to meet increased case load was vetoed. Your budget was cut in 2015 and now the governor's office is recommending further cuts. Making things worse is the fact that the number of cases has increased 12%. What would you do?
The Director of the Missouri Public Defender System came up with a novel approach to help meet the increased caseload burden and sent a letter to the Governor (PDF) compelling him to work cases.
Additional reporting here, here, and here.
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Missouri Governor Fails to Fund Public Defender's Office so They Compel him to Work Cases
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(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 05 2016, @06:57AM
Neverending budget cuts for 15 years and counting! Which perpetual war got the funding instead?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 05 2016, @07:42AM
Gotta get all them ISIS. Go!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by davester666 on Friday August 05 2016, @09:01AM
Remember, Iraq War II was going to be cheap, somewhere under $50B, we were going to "share" the cost with our allies, and Iraq was going to pay us back for it from oil revenues.
Their estimate was only out by 2 orders of magnitude...
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Friday August 05 2016, @12:26PM
Why don't we just enact a high windfall tax on haliburton to pay for it? It's the libetarian way, those (oil companies) that need the services (death and destruction over there) pay for it, and those that don't don't pay for it.
(Score: 2) by Spook brat on Friday August 05 2016, @01:53PM
Sounds like a great idea, except for a pair of pesky facts:
1) KBR, the Halliburton division that provides battlefield services got spun off prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF, also called Gulf War II elsewhere in this thread); it was fully independent and had nothing to do with either Cheney or Halliburton when the war started (and still doesn't, in case that wasn't clear)
2) Halliburton (stock symbol HES) is not an oil production company, they are a service company. Little of the money made producing Iraqi wells made it into Halliburton's balance books; in fact, if you check their quarterly reports you'll find that trying to extort that money from HES would be like squeezing blood from a turnip.
Travel the galaxy! Meet fascinating life forms... And kill them [schlockmercenary.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday August 05 2016, @10:57PM
1) Ok, then tax KBR for profiteering off the war instead of Halliburton.
2) Somebody made money producing from Iraq's oil wells. That somebody needs to pay. Well, more precisely, somebody did before ISIS got control of many of them, and now ISIS profits from it.
The larger point is clear: If the US government spent ridiculous gobs of money on invading Iraq and Afghanistan. That money went somewhere, and it wasn't to the guys who were over there taking bullets. They should be taxed extra to offset their windfall.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 05 2016, @11:28PM
translation:
"The point is I was totally wrong, but I'm really angry and indignant and looking for convenient scapegoats to blame! THEM! It was all those guy's fault."
(Score: 2) by Spook brat on Saturday August 06 2016, @08:17PM
Cut Thexalon some slack, it was isostatic who thought HES was the place to claw war profits back from.
Travel the galaxy! Meet fascinating life forms... And kill them [schlockmercenary.com]
(Score: 5, Informative) by Grishnakh on Friday August 05 2016, @02:28PM
None. Missouri is a state and not at war with anyone. Wars are the domain of the Federal government, which is separately funded, so they're entirely irrelevant.
There's nothing stopping Missouri from properly funding its court system, except a lack of will in the state legislature and the governor's office.
It'd be nice if our country spent less money on wars overseas, but this has absolutely nothing to do with how states manage their budgets. Any state that has a budget shortfall is perfectly free to raise various taxes: state income tax, state sales tax, etc., or to make cuts elsewhere.
(Score: 1) by gmrath on Friday August 05 2016, @05:29PM
"Which perpetual [failed] war got the funding instead?"
Closer to what's going on.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by number11 on Friday August 05 2016, @06:58AM
Perfectly reasonable. They can assign cases to any registered lawyer, and the Governor is a registered lawyer.l
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 05 2016, @07:07AM
On the one hand, the governor is the member of the executive branch empowered to issue pardons.
On the other hand, the governor could pardon defendants until the case load can be covered by the budget available to the public defender's office.
(Score: 2) by stormreaver on Friday August 05 2016, @01:02PM
They can assign cases to any registered lawyer, and the Governor is a registered lawyer.
According to Nixon's office, only the Circuit Court can compel a private attorney to represent someone, and the Public Defender's Office can only delegate to those attorneys within its office.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 05 2016, @04:21PM
That was for federal cases. Missouri can do what they want for state court cases.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 06 2016, @02:14AM
I hope they didn't forget any registered lawyers in the state legislature.
(Score: 2) by dltaylor on Friday August 05 2016, @07:11AM
Since he doesn't want them defended, particularly by himself, and who knows how competent a criminal law attorney he is anyway, pretty much all of his clients going to be able to appeal a conviction based on the quality (or lack thereof) of their representation, so the cases will be kicked back down for retrial. These additional trials will save the state how much money?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 05 2016, @07:21AM
Governor: "And I object that I'm compelled to work this case!"
Judge: "Guilty as shit!"
Accused: "Uh? Mistrial?"
Governor & Judge: "Shut up!"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NCommander on Friday August 05 2016, @11:24AM
Quality in and of itself is not basis for an appeal. One can argue that having a substandard lawyer runs around Miranda rights, but that's going to be an uphill battle to fight, and if you can't get a good lawyer to defend you at trial, getting a good lawyer to lodge and win the appeal is likely impossible. As long as a lawyer doesn't make an actual error of law, there isn't grounds to appeal a case. There's nothing illegal about having a defense lawyer who doesn't once object.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Friday August 05 2016, @02:39PM
To be a pedant, the right to an attorney would rightfully be called your Gideon rights not your Miranda rights.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 05 2016, @04:23PM
You have the right to be pedantic ...
(Score: 2) by linuxrocks123 on Friday August 05 2016, @09:04PM
Incompetent representation is grounds for mistrial: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ineffective_assistance_of_counsel [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Friday August 05 2016, @07:40AM
If lawyers can't be hired, why not simply dismiss the cases? Then the governor can take the heat for letting criminals go free because he wouldn't fund the judicial system.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 05 2016, @07:44AM
Your ass is going to stay in jail until you pay for your own lawyer.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Friday August 05 2016, @03:49PM
As prisons increasingly become 'for profit prisons', it would make sense* for the state to allocate more money to keep prisons full, and allocate less funds to defending people which might cause unprofitable vacancies within the prisons.
Prison overflows are a good thing (in states like this, with governors and legislatures like this) because prison overflowing leads to constructing more of the profitable prisons and thus increasing value to shareholders.
* it would make sense in some twisted reasoning. I don't want to blame a particular political party, but hey that party is also 'pro-business' and insists that all regulation of any kind is bad. Go ahead, pollute our air, water; eliminate competitors, have worse service and higher prices! It's good for business!
Also, for profit prisons ensure a demand for the education system to produce a continuous stream of graduates, a certain percentage of which, are guaranteed to be poorly educated, less employable, more likely to commit crime, and more likely to end up in profitable prisons -- increasing value to shareholders, and leading to demand to build more of the profitable prisons!
What doesn't kill me makes me weaker for next time.
(Score: 2) by jelizondo on Friday August 05 2016, @04:48PM
Go ahead, say it, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, BOTH are as pro-business as they can get.
You don't believe it? Just follow the money... going to both parties from Wall Street, insurance companies, big banks, the Koch brothers et al.
God, I hate this situation... no choice at all or the long shot Green Party...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 05 2016, @11:12AM
I'd guess the cases can't simply be dismissed, because the defendants *do* have a lawyer. It's just that each of those lawyers is also working for 100+ other people at the same time. And since the state government refused to set a cap, each of those lawyers can always be made to take on another client.
So long as the public defender's office has lawyers on staff, this will continue. A strike or mass resignation is the only way this will come to a head any time soon.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mendax on Friday August 05 2016, @07:52AM
Imagine a situation in which people start winning appeals on the basis of lack of competent representation because the public defender's attorney was overwhelmed by his workload. Or worse, people who fail to waive time (that is waive their right to a speedy trial) being let loose because they are not brought to trial quickly enough because the public defender's office cannot represent him. Now I would enjoy seeing this.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 05 2016, @08:14AM
Here in America, we have a funny situation where 0% of cases go to trial. The way things work in reality, the prosecutor offers a plea bargain, the public defender says to take the plea bargain, and the judge does nothing. So in the interest of efficiency, you can eliminate public defenders and judges and courts, and have offenders report directly to the prosecutor to receive the plea bargain.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 05 2016, @10:46AM
That's a hard pill to swallow for those who are wrongly accused or entrapped by law enforcement. Better give them extra time in jail so they can think about how to be a better defendant next time around.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 05 2016, @01:34PM
Remember the story we had about Krispy Kreme doughnuts testing positive as cocaine? In a lot of those anecdotes, perfectly innocent people who probably had very decent cases instead took the plea bargain. Why risk jail time and a felony record, which will irreparably ruin your life and destroy your dreams, when you can just accept that something unfortunate happened to you, pay the troll under the bridge, and move on?
At the very least, what's somebody going to do? Call a friend or family member to say they've been arrested for evil Satan worship drugzzzzzz and become a black sheep for the rest of the their life?
Americans' insistence on being "hard on crime" has created quite the peculiar little system of tyranny.
I don't think I have ever, once in my lifetime observed an American who give a flying fuck about liberty except maybe on the TV. I hate America because Americans hate my freedoms.
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday August 06 2016, @03:42AM
Americans love liberty, especially the liberty to remove the liberty of others. Consider how many Americans believe in the Bill of Rights. Just about every one will disregard the 1st and 2nd. They're good examples because they're so simple, no weasel words like reasonable, just simple restrictions on the government and rights for the people but almost every American thinks that Congress should be able to restrict speech for various reasons such as national security while the 1st has no exceptions written into it and being an amendment, overrides earlier parts of the Constitution. The 2nd is really simple too. People have the right to bear arms, not only honest people or everyone except potential terrorists or only sane people. Arms can be debated a bit more, is a strategic weapon such as an ICBM an arm? I don't know, but I do know that all Homo Sapiens, even non-American citizens, are people and some would say that corporations etc are also people.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by pendorbound on Friday August 05 2016, @02:50PM
Having within the last year sat on a criminal jury where the defendant rejected the DA's plea offer and went to trial, you're a bit off on that 0% number you pulled out. (For the record, the defendant was acquitted.)
Even before trial, a defendant has an absolute right to council. The intricacies of evidenciary law, the plea bargaining process, and everything else that happens pre-trial is far beyond what any lay-person could be expected to understand. If you're going to deny right to council pre-trial, you might as well skip the effort entirely and go straight to Judge Dredd.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday August 05 2016, @03:54PM
Couldn't this system be automated using 21st century technology?
Couldn't the police have a tablet with an app? You waive all your rights and go directly to jail? Seems like it could save a lot of money 'wasted' on constitutional ideas like justice. Ah, but the governor and legislators could probably never bring themselves to spend even a small amount to develop this app.
What doesn't kill me makes me weaker for next time.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 05 2016, @04:26PM
Couldn't the police have a tablet with an app? You waive all your rights and go directly to jail?
They already have something similar called a gun and it can send you to the hospital or the morgue without the need for those pesky trials.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Friday August 05 2016, @06:34PM
If no public defenders are available to handle the original case, and defendants have no funds, who exactly is going to file an appeal?
(Score: 2) by mendax on Friday August 05 2016, @08:39PM
Now that is an interesting question. There are "jailhouse lawyers", and believe it or not successful appeals get started in that way. It's not an ideal solution obviously. My guess is that if this was such a case, the ACLU would be interested in pursuing these matters.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Thexalon on Friday August 05 2016, @03:06PM
What should actually happen is that the prosecutors' office funding and public defenders' funding should be closely related. If each prosecutor has a caseload of, say, 100 cases a month of which 5 are expected to go to trial, each public defender should have about 100 cases a month of which 5 are expected to go to trial. Instead what's happening is that the public defenders in that situation have about 1000 cases per month and 50 that might go to trial, and thus to nobody's surprise the public defenders are not even close to as prepared for their cases as the prosecutors are.
Doing anything else stacks the deck in favor of the prosecution in any case where the defendant is unable to afford an attorney. And that's exactly what we're doing in every jurisdiction in the US.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 05 2016, @05:44PM
The problem is that prosecutors are paid at the county level (with state and county funds, btw) and public defenders are paid at the state level.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday August 05 2016, @05:48PM
Yeah, but that could result in a fair and just legal system. Can't have that!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 05 2016, @03:57PM
Is this actually constitutional, in particular in regard to separation of powers? I am not a lawyer, but it looks like there are strong arguments both for and against it.
Constitutional: It is the law that any lawyer can be "drafted."
Unconstitutional: The Judicial branch is interfering with the Executive branch in the execution of its duties.
For example, consider instead of it being a funding crisis, what if it had been some activist judge who personally disliked the governor (or there was some ongoing legislative battle, and the judge wanted to sequester several important legislators during the debates and votes)? Could the judge not use the same power in the same way to interfere with politics?
As for this specific situation, I love the irony and the petard hoist of this. I also personally feel that public defense funds need to be substantially increased (from what I've heard). I wonder how it will play out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 05 2016, @05:46PM
Nope. The PD office is an executive branch. So you have one executive telling another what to do.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 05 2016, @06:12PM
Nope. The PD office is an executive branch. So you have one executive telling another what to do.
"In 1982, a house bill amended the system with the creation of the Office of State Public Defender (OSPD) as an independent department of the judicial branch of state government." [mo.gov] So no... the PD office is the Judicial branch.
So yes, you do have the Judicial branch telling the Executive branch what to do... or more specifically trying to compel them to do something.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 05 2016, @07:04PM
Except that 600.019 makes it an independent department covered by Chapter 536. They have been delegated executive power, and can use all powers delegated to them. The Governor doesn't like it, he can challenge it the same way you challenge any other abuse of agency power.
(Score: 2) by jelizondo on Friday August 05 2016, @04:42PM
Perhaps you have already watched John Oliver's segment on Public Defenders [youtube.com], if not, it is very informative.
(Score: 1) by zero_cool on Friday August 05 2016, @10:45PM
Well plaid Sir!
the budgetary paperwork you requested, i have signed it allready please just fill in whichever numbers you require!