Why it's one law for the rich in America and McJustice for the rest

[Judi Lynn]

Why it's one law for the rich in America and McJustice for the rest

Fifty years after the supreme court ordered states to provide legal counsel to all, Americans still only get the justice they can afford

David A Love
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 14 March 2013 10.30 EDT

With an historic vote in the state senate for repeal of that state's death penalty statute, Maryland is on track to become the 18th US state to abolish capital punishment. As much as such repeals are worth celebrating, though, they reform just one aspect of a criminal justice system in which poor defendants are provided shoddy, substandard legal representation, if any at all, and innocent people are convicted and imprisoned and, on occasion, may even have been executed.

Coincidentally, 18 March marks the 50th anniversary of the landmark US supreme court decision in Gideon v Wainwright, which ruled that states under the 14th amendment must provide counsel to criminal defendants who cannot afford a lawyer. The right to counsel already existed in federal criminal prosecutions under the sixth amendment, but the supreme court forcefully reiterated that.

Sadly, five decades after Gideon, most courts ignore the constitutional right to counsel by inadequately funding equal representation (pdf) for the indigent. In many cases, this right exists only on paper, as there is no public will or interest on the part of government to provide competent lawyers to poor people. Many courts administer cases quickly and with all the thoughtfulness and deliberation of a fast-food restaurant. What we have then is "McJustice", as one Minnesota judge described it.

Even a well-educated layperson charged with a crime knows little or nothing about the law, and "requires the guiding hand of counsel at every step in the proceedings against him", the supreme court concluded in Gideon. After all, what if the defendant is not properly charged, or the evidence is insufficient for a conviction? The average person lacks the proper knowledge and training to defend himself or herself. The court realized that there can be no equality before the law if the poor have no lawyers; what results is that justice is meted out on the basis of one's personal wealth.

mORE:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/14/law-rich-america-mcjustice

[xtraxritical]

1. Most public defenders just go for the easiest plea bargain they can get the "client" to accept.

They really work for the court, not the client. It's another sad American joke sugar coated by the sacrosanct "law".

[jzodda]

3. Well I disagree with that

I have friends who are PDs (I am also an attorney) These people are the true believers. They want to help the accused but the hurdles they face are many.

and they are swamped- They get thrown so many cases with so few resources that its almost impossible for them to give everybody the best possible representation.

They try and work very hard though. For little pay they work 60 hours a week and sometimes close to 70 hours a week. The number of cases they get keeps rising and yet they still layoff people due to budget cuts.

Need to travel to interview a witness? No budget
Need to get a witness to where you are for examination at trial? No budget
Need to get an expert on the stand? No budget

The list goes on and on.

Unfortunately they have to choose which cases get their attention and which do not. Many of these offices need to hire 2x the number of PDs they have and some urban areas need more than that.

Also many of the accused who are found guilty file bar complaints complaining of poor representation no matter how much time they spend on the case. So they have to take time out each week to respond to those as well. It takes a few minutes to file such a complaint but it takes many hours to respond to one.

Last time i was in my friends office she had files stacked almost to the ceiling.

[midnight]

2. We cut the funding to the public defenders budget.... These folks have a much smaller budget

than the prosecutors office.... These budget cuts happened about two years ago.... One of the many rounds of austerity cuts hitting our county budgets...