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Missouri Governor Fails to Fund Public Defender's Office so They Compel him to Work Cases

posted by janrinok on Friday August 05 2016, @06:28AM   
from the revenge-is-sweet dept.

martyb writes:

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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Original Submission   Alternate Submission

• Re:endless appeals, which won't help the budget Re:endless appeals, which won't help the budget (Score: 3, Interesting) by NCommander on Friday August 05 2016, @11:24AM

  by NCommander (2) <michael@casadevall.pro> on Friday August 05 2016, @11:24AM (#384450) Homepage Journal

  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.

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  Still always moving

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• Re:endless appeals, which won't help the budget Re:endless appeals, which won't help the budget (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Friday August 05 2016, @02:39PM

  by ikanreed (3164) on Friday August 05 2016, @02:39PM (#384489) Journal

  To be a pedant, the right to an attorney would rightfully be called your Gideon rights not your Miranda rights.

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  • Re:endless appeals, which won't help the budget (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 05 2016, @04:23PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 05 2016, @04:23PM (#384520)

    You have the right to be pedantic ...

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• Re:endless appeals, which won't help the budget (Score: 2) by linuxrocks123 on Friday August 05 2016, @09:04PM

  by linuxrocks123 (2557) on Friday August 05 2016, @09:04PM (#384623) Journal

  Incompetent representation is grounds for mistrial: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ineffective_assistance_of_counsel [wikipedia.org]

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