I made that come out as an attack on individual PDs when I said they bungled things. I didn't mean it that way. I should have stated the system of public defense or something similar.
I don't see how it matters to a defendant if the attorney is court appointed or a full time PD. Either way, the person is filling the role of his constitutionally guaranteed legal advocate.
500 felonies and 2,225 misdemeanors.
2,725 cases a year.
Lets assume they work 80 hours a week with to weeks vacation and are present and working on their cases 100% of the time they are at work. NO facebook. No travel time. No waiting in the court room for their case to come up. No waiting in between the clients being shuffled in to a meeting. No schmoozing with private practice attorney or prosecutor they want to hire them. Absolute efficiency and everything happens instantly. That is 4000 hours to spend on cases.
That is less than 90 minutes a case.
80 hours a week, especially with 100% efficiency and no delays, isn't sustainable.
What if they only work 60 hours a week? 66 minutes a case.
40 hours a week? 45 minutes a case.
Many public employees actually only have a seven hour work day, 8-4 or 9-5 with an hour for lunch, whats that look like? Just over 35 minutes.
Then consider travel time, waiting time, schmoozing, facebook, federal holidays?
Some of these cases are felony cases. Some of them involve the possibility of life in prison or even the death penalty. A few might even go to trial. Where does that leave the median case? The lesser felonies? 20 minutes? Maybe 25. 10-15 minutes for a misdemeanor?
How can you not think that is a joke?
However, not long after that he committed suicide and family stated it was his experience with the arrest that led to his decision to kill himself.
Procedural delays left him to rot longer than a conviction would. Was unable to re-adjust after release. You may think the delays are insane or impossible, but I am involved in a federal case with AIRTIGHT evidence including a partial confession. 8 months into a projected 18 month wait for a grand jury to give an indictment. And it involves minor victims under 5 years of age. The suspect is not in custody as he has not been indicted. Just walking around doing whatever he wants.
There was another case in Texas recently where a guy was arrested for something like a 2-5 year felony. maybe 5-10. Armed robbery or something. Writer interviewed the PD and a private attorney. Maybe legal aid for the private and I believe the PD was originally assigned the case. Suspect said he was in a city two hours away watching a movie with his girlfriend or something when the crime occurred. The private attorney, or maybe a paralegal/clerk, drives to the city with a list of places the guy was supposedly at when the felony was committed. Movie theater or something has surveillance video of the guy there with his girlfriend right when crime occurred.
PD is very clear in the article. If he is representing the guy he can't do that. He doesn't have a full afternoon to spend on the case or anyone else available to drive to the other city and check it out. He doesn't have any resources to pay for the travel even if he will go at night on his own time. He doesn't make enough he can afford to make the trip out of the kindness of his heart, all his clients make claims like this after all. The only evidence he can submit is the girlfriend's testimony she was with him, and no one will believe her. He will push the guy into a plea deal for a lesser charge and a couple years prison sentence. Totally innocent guy with evidence exonerating him readily available, and he will need to plea to a couple years if ha has a PD. In "5 minutes" the PD decided the case was a loser given his resource constrictions. So much for only needing five minutes.
Why accept that plea as a defendant? The kid in NY who ended up killing himself almost certainly would have been released sooner if he had accepted a plea agreement. Probably in less than a year.
Oh, I found
the NY article
Throughout, he insisted on his innocence, refusing several offers from prosecutors to take a plea deal, including one that would have allowed him to be released immediately.
All he had to do was accept a criminal record for life.
Both prosecutors' offices and public defender's offices are popular places to work with newly-minted attorneys because they can rack up a lot of trial experience in a short time.
In fact, we have former trial level public defenders on our staff.
Yeah, they can cut their teeth on the indigent. That is pretty much how it works. Maybe an elected PD at the top or something, but most will be fresh from law school hoping to get moved somewhere else. I know a few medical professionals from Mexico who spent their first year after graduating in remote clinics where there was little to no medical care. Great experience. They even tuned into pretty good doctors. Only a few patients died and they were poor, so who cares? That is what a lot of PD positions are for those filling them. A place to learn and make mistakes where the people suffering the consequences aren't valued by society. In one of the articles I read yesterday a previous PD discussed being hired as a PD a day after passing the BAR. His first week he was given a murder case with life imprisonment as a possibility. With absolutely no experience.
He doesn't file discovery motions, in part*, because he sees the same paperwork, and the same evidence, over and over.
And one of the most important parts of his job is to make sure that same paperwork filed over and over by the bored paper pushers was done correctly. That there were no clerical mistakes, breaks in the chain of custody, etc. That is extremely important and I would never consider a defense where that was not performed to meet minimal standards. I would definitely fire a private attorney in my employ if they said something like that. Something like documentation(or lack there of) of a breathalyzer being correctly calibrated is where those cases are won and lost. If you are poor and have a PD, you just lose.
Like I said before, the PD system is different in almost every states and many states do not even have a statewide system. There are hundreds or even thousands of separate PD systems with a wide variance in competency. Poor areas tend to fare much worse. N.O. is supposed to be especially bad right now b/c they still have pretty extensive economic problems. I imagine Detroit's system is in pretty bad shape. California is supposed to have some of the best.
I'm not saying it is the worst system out there either. Most countries are much worse. Probably a few are a little better also.
And here is the kicker. I don't really care. Not enough to do anything about it. I'm not volunteering any time to the PDs office in my county to pick-up surveillance video of an alibi in Columbus. I'm not writing my congressman asking him to increase resources. I'm not donating even $5 to a legal aid group in my area. Most people don't and that is why it continues. I just think it is a joke and I don't see how anyone could fail to see it as such.
Like FDIC.
