Yet another gem of a LTTE.

[livinginphotographs]

That damn pesky due-process! It's diverting money that we could be using to kill Ay-rabs!

Lawyers for 'Indigent' Signify Conflict
Editor, Times-Dispatch: Virginia taxpayers shell out only $78.1 million to defend indigent lawbreakers and crooks. They committed a crime, were arrested by a tax-paid law-enforcement officer, had a court date set by a tax-paid court official in a tax-paid building to appear before a tax-paid judge. The tax-paid judge appoints a tax-paid attorney to defend the crook. In many cases the crook has received food, beverages, clothing, medical and dental care, television, library privileges, recreation, and other tax-paid services -- generally before and after his court-appointed attorney even starts to tell the judge and jury, in some cases, what a role model and outstanding citizen his new client has been.

There is only one reason we taxpayers have to work to pay for the above abuse and waste of taxpayers' money: Lawyers make the law. Only a dollar forced from a taxpayer in the courts is by law no conflict of interests.

If lawmaking bodies of Virginia were mostly restaurant owners and they budgeted $78.1 million to feed all crooks on Tuesday nights, then they would call the crooks "indigent unfed." J.T. Matthews. bon air.

I refer Mr. Matthews to the 6th amendment of a little document called the US Constitution: "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence."

Dumb ass...

[sui generis]

1. and even further

a crook isn't a crook until the court says so, or "innocent until proven guilty, etc."

The language of the LTTE makes an awful lot of assumptions.

[China_cat]

3. It's been a long, long time

since most people believed anything but that if you were arrested, you were guilty and if you were proven innocent that it just meant that you got away with it.

[JDPriestly]

2. Mr. Matthews --

was a child left behind. Apparently he did not take government classes at school -- or went to school before 1963 when the Supreme Court enforced the right to counsel provision in the Constitution -- GIDEON v. WAINWRIGHT, 372 U.S. 335 (1963). To read that historic case see

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=372&page=335

There is an interesting book on the history of that case entitled (I think) "Gideon's Trumpet."

The lack of good education on the government of our country is one of my pet peeves. THE MAJOR FUNCTION of education in our country should be to prepare citizens to govern themselves. This is being ignored today. I wonder sometimes what kind of education about government some of the home schooled and privately schooled kids get. It is bad enough in the public schools.

[seabeyond]

4. becasue it says doesnt make it true

the tax payed attorney generally so busy doesnt give the best defense and often that speedy trial is anything but, and the food we pay for is so little and so bad for a person adn does so little to maintain the body adn the luxerious hotel like jail, well that too is over crowded and too many in too small a space

so though all that sounds cool enough, it isnt a reality

prisoners are suffering all, it is not all cozy, just like we want them to, it is horrible i assure you and our tax dollar is surely being used, wasted, lost stolen. but pay we do

[livinginphotographs]

5. That may be true...

And in fact it is quite often true, but I would advocate spending the money better, not calling it a "waste of taxpayer's money," blaming it on those evil trial-lawyers, and taking the poor out into the street to be shot, which is what this guy seems to be wishing for.

[seabeyond]

6. you are right of course

this is the silliness. yes we are spending the money for. and many think prisoners are being coddled and it pisses them off. if people knew what was happening in person, well is a whole nother story. just another system gone wrong. why we dont want more ways of being put in jail, we are all gonna end up there soon for one reason or another. or those of us that cant follow all these many friggin rules. not all of us are that good

not just the murderers either