Public Defenders

[StLucieBengal]

I thought there was someone here who said they were one or was in the past.   I thought this was crazy, and worth sharing.    Is it really this backed up?

[fredtoast]

I worked for the Public defenders office here for almost 15 years. Luckily I was not too overburdened. Most of the guys that have more work than they can possibly handle are usually in the big cities. I had to deal with that many years ago when I was first starting out as a lawyer. I worked in Nashville as a State Prosecutor for Child Support Enforcement. In those cases i was working asa court appointed attorney for women who received or were due child support. I had more cases than I could handle. Most of my clients just talked to one of my caseworkers until the day of court. They barely got to talk to me.


--As for the states where people are forced to pay for a public defender it is usually on a sliding scale, so they just have to pay what they can afford. it the judge does this properly it is actually fair. There are some people with some assets that still can not afford an attorney, and it is not fair to not make them pay at least a small fee. However there are also states like Florida that make it a farce.

--As for people taking pleas to get out of jail, that has nothing to do with being represented by a Public defender. If they can not make bail then they are going to sit in jail for a long time before ever getting to trial. So no matter who represents them they are still going to cop a plea instead of sitting in jail

--As for 90% of cases being plead out instead of going to trial that is the way it should work if the police and Prosecuting Attorneys are doing their jobs correctly. Police should not be arresting a lot of innocent people, and when they do the Prosecutor should no to dismiss a case if he does not have the evidence to win at trial. In fact many of the cases I have tried have not been claiming that my client was completely innocent. Instead our defense is that he is only guilty of a lesser crime than he is charged with.

--A lot of the cases I get now are what are called "conflict cases" that the Public Defenders office can not take because in the past they have represented a co-defendant or a victim or a witness involved in the current case. (A surprisingly high percentage of crime victims and witnesses of crimes are criminals themselves. Criminals hang out with criminals and they eventually end up getting into fights or stealing from each other.) But there is one judge I practice in front of now who claims there are conflicts with the PDs office just to keep from dumping everything on them. The judge knows that if he gives all the cases to the PD then the system will clog up and grind to a halt.

--Finally MANY criminals will try to blame their decision to take a plea on their lawyer. I guess it does happen at times, but the first thing I tell my clients is that I will not be held responsible for them taking a plea.