IT'S AN OUTRAGE THAT BARRETT HAS CHOSEN TO IGNORE LONGSTANDING NORMS IN AN ACT OF SABOTAGE AIMED AT THE DULY ELECTED GOVERNOR OF HIS STATE.
I wonder how many other states have a provision like this.
Every state has provisions for electing a governor.
Except Wyoming, where the population is so small that they simply take turns.
A bit like the UK, where the current prime minister didn't get elected, she just got the job because no one else wanted it.
Reason #5,376,405 to not go to law school.
I love it. I hope the client is being held in jail and he has to make multiple trips to the jail.
This is great. Apart from the fact that inevitably a bunch of people have been railroaded by prosecutors taking advantage of the lack of public defenders.
In my ideal world the entire legal profession is nationalized like the NHS. You shouldn't have to pay for access to justice or to cover your ass against getting fucked by giant corporations. There's something grotesque about the fact that the quality of representation you get depends on how much money you have.
If you've been fucked by a giant corporation in a way that has caused monetary damages and this happened in Georgia, I can send you my brother's email.
You shouldn't have to pay for access to justice
TO NONE WILL WE SELL, TO NONE DELAY, TO NONE DENY JUSTICE OR RIGHT.
That's interesting, I didn't know there was an upper limit on pseud length.
16: That sounds nice, but I can't imagine that's workable even in the best of all possible worlds. Even in Britain there are private doctors, but that's (largely) fine because medicine isn't adversarial. You'd end up with for-entertainment-only-totally-not-law-firms of unlicensed people who just happen to be educated in the law (from Schools of Totally Not Law Just For Funsies), and will write out--for hefty fees--perfect arguments for you to hand to your counsel.
21: That'd still be a vast improvement over a world where OJ Simpson walks but someone without his wealth ends up doing hard time based on worse evidence. The existence of minor flaws in nationalization of legal practice doesn't excuse the appalling system we have now. Maybe national legal insurance would work, or something along those lines. But our existing system could hardly be better designed to fuck the weak and the poor, and that's just far, far worse than the possibility that some rich person could sneak around the edges and get marginally better service.
Legal aid for the poor, and a cost-sharing rule for the rich.
"I am poor."
"The state will appoint a public defender for you, at the same price it pays for the prosecutor."
"I am rich. I would like to pay $40,000 for my own super-duper defence lawyer."
"Of course. Please also pay another $40,000 for the other side to spend on its own equally super-duper prosecutor."
The immediate status quo objection I'm more familiar with is that a few people would start abusing the benefit to file many frivolous suits, and to prevent that you'd need some kind of approval system, like a panel, and that would have some kind of perverse outcome I guess? Still seems worlds better than today's system. I assume UK Legal Aid (which extends to some kinds of civil cases) has some experience and ides.
I'm impressed at 23. I could see it appealing more to Americans.
Beware the Ides of Legal Aid.
My argument is that it's fundamentally unnationalizable due to the fact that the hard parts of law--making convincing, well-researched arguments--aren't particularly regulable if it's not in the lawyers' interests to work within the system. The system as described would quickly devolve into something very like what we have now. If there's more money in being a para-lawyer (who does everything but the court room appearance) for the highest bidder (which presumably there will be), the best/greediest lawyers will become that; the only people who remain traditionally licensed lawyers would be the people who couldn't or wouldn't do that. I imagine that for criminal trials that will resemble the class of people who become public defenders. You'd still have rich people going free and poor people not. And of course, big corporations will still have legal departments, perhaps under a different name.
As for legal insurance, okay, that makes a bit more sense to me, but it sounds equivalent to just paying public defenders better (as well as maybe extending the role to have public representation for other legal needs besides criminal trials?). I support that. I think it'd be great if we increased funding until being a public defender has the same prestige as a DA.
You'd end up with for-entertainment-only-totally-not-law-firms of unlicensed people who just happen to be educated in the law (from Schools of Totally Not Law Just For Funsies), and will write out--for hefty fees--perfect arguments for you to hand to your counsel.
Presumably, like air-freshening amyl nitrate, these lawyers would operate out of sex shops.
The immediate status quo objection I'm more familiar with is that a few people would start abusing the benefit to file many frivolous suits
I was thinking just for criminal cases. What to do about civil cases is a bit more difficult. Expert systems?
What makes this letter even better is that I first saw it at the other place on the wall of an IRS attorney, who declared it the greatest letter ever written.
Oh, yes, I should credit you -- I saw it because Jenny sent it to me.
I have a serious and undoubtably laughably naïve question about this, which is, if the budget is reduced so severely that many fewer public defenders can be employed, and random members of the bar lack the knowledge to serve defendants (or, as likely or more likely, would purposefully malinger or provide shoddy work out of protest/to avoid being called back), why isn't it open to the office to say, basically, "this person has rights to representation and a speedy trial, but no representation can be found; guess you'll have to let him go"? Is it just that the right to a speedy trial hasn't had teeth in forever or is the answer even more depressing?
That could happen, but it would have to come from a judge, and judges average prosecution-friendly. And there's a Catch-22, that to suggest to a judge that it should happen would require someone to make a motion in the individual case: if there's no defender, there's no one to make the motion, and if there is a defender, just go ahead and do the defense instead of saying the case should be dismissed.
But it'd be interesting to lobby judges en masse to make that kind of order sua sponte: there's probably some reason I can't think of offhand why it couldn't happen, but I can't think of it.
Judges can't act sua sponte, huh.
If I were a judge I'd be tossing out cases right and left. Me for judge!
Oh you mentioned the sua sponte possibility already. Clearly that should be his next move.
Judges in Missouri probably face retention elections. I assume they call it the Missouri Plan for a reason
That is an awesome letter. Nixon will say no, and the judge won't make him do it, but it's still an awesome letter.
I think I recall someone trying something like the suggestion in 35 in Louisiana. The article linked below refers to a case where something similar happened (see the paragraph near the end about Judge Hunter) but I'm not sure it's the same case I remember hearing about.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/03/new-orleans-public-defenders-financial-crisis
41: I remember listening to an NPR story saying that the Louisiana public defenders office was refusing to take any more clients because they didn't have the resources to do so responsibly.
Of course there would be an interesting crim pro discussion going on on the day I am on a bunch of post-surgical painkillers. Imagine me saying smart things here.
(33 this is indeed a great letter but the best letter is still I'm Sorry You Are From Dallas.)
Agreed to 43. And I'll take any extra Percocet.
While 43 does indeed link to a great letter, the greatest letter is this one.
That guy was GC of the Cleveland Browns when he was what, a year out of law school?
That was back when you could buy NFL teams for a nickel.
I think it'd be great if we increased funding until being a public defender has the same prestige as a DA.
Good luck with the prestige part. Probably needs to be more like a pipefitter. "You're going do deal with a lot of shit but at least the pay is good."
Something is really wrong here.
One would think that all of the "Defenders of the Constitution" would appreciate public defenders. But, instead, they get mocked as rapist-lovers and defenders, while prosecutors get adorned.*
*unless you prosecute wayward cops or cattle ranchers
I don't understand how either gets enough applicants here. Public defenders get $40,000 and prosecutors only a bit more.
54:
1.Job market is glutted, so it is either that or doc review.
2. Best way to get jury trial experience.
Doc review pays better per hour, at least here.
56:
Same here. Just ungodly boring and no upward mobility.
There's not really an active politics thread at the moment, but I want to put this here for future reference:
I've mentioned a number of times that evidence shows that only Southern working class whites have left the Democratic Party, and there's usually some pushback. So here's a link to a relevant Brookings report from 2012, with the definitive graph on page 10. Non-southern working class whites have been around 50/50 presidential voters since 1956. Southern working class whites have gone from about 55/45 to 30/70 over that time.
While 47 does indeed link to a great letter, the greatest is the reply given in the matter of Arkell v Pressdram.
Swedish criminal lawyers get disbarred if they accept money from their clients. They bill the state.