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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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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
"Benson, you are so free of the ravages of intelligence"
-- Time Bandits
(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.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(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.