Assembly line justice...

[Canarr]

...is a problem where overworked and underfunded public defense departments are forced to spend so few hours on any individual criminal case that defendants are basically moved along an assembly line right to prison.

Of course, that affects poor people the most. In Missouri, apparently, that often translates to black people. The Director of the Public Defenders' Office found a clever solution:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...sault-suspect/

He wrote to the governor of the state, who holds responsibility for the budget cuts that increase the case load for each individual public defender, and he used a Section of Missouri State Law that apparently gives the Director the authority to "delegate the legal represenation of any person to any member of the state bar of Missouri". Which, apparently, includes the governor.

I find that a very creative way of calling attention to such a problem.

[wolfie]

Very interesting provision in state law - with the potential to cause a lot of problems. I assume district atorneys have to be members of the state bar. What would happen if the public defender's office appointed the district attorney responsible for prosecuting the case as someone's defense attorney?

[Greenday]

Very interesting provision in state law - with the potential to cause a lot of problems. I assume district atorneys have to be members of the state bar. What would happen if the public defender's office appointed the district attorney responsible for prosecuting the case as someone's defense attorney?

Basically, no, that'd never happen. It's a conflict of interest and would immediately get denied.

[s_stabeler]

that's certainly a ...creative...way of drawing the attention of the governor to the problem. basically making it partially the governor's problem.

I will point out though that there's a reason why the PD's office is underfunded. It's an easy cut to make to appease the small government folks, while the problems it causes are invisible to the people who push for less government spending and lower taxes. (it's similar to why NASA keeps getting cuts. the benefits are largely invisible while space missions cost a lot of money.)

unfortunately, this is what happens when there's a vocal minority who consider spending money on poor people to be money that is inherently wasted.

[Greenday]

that's certainly a ...creative...way of drawing the attention of the governor to the problem. basically making it partially the governor's problem.

I will point out though that there's a reason why the PD's office is underfunded. It's an easy cut to make to appease the small government folks, while the problems it causes are invisible to the people who push for less government spending and lower taxes. (it's similar to why NASA keeps getting cuts. the benefits are largely invisible while space missions cost a lot of money.)

unfortunately, this is what happens when there's a vocal minority who consider spending money on poor people to be money that is inherently wasted.

Also, it mainly just affects those who can't vote so cutting funding to the PD's office doesn't affect voters.

[Estil]

Very interesting provision in state law - with the potential to cause a lot of problems. I assume district atorneys have to be members of the state bar. What would happen if the public defender's office appointed the district attorney responsible for prosecuting the case as someone's defense attorney?

*cough*conflict of interest*cough*

[Tanasi]

The same thing was tried here in my AO. The result was that a lot of defendants wound up with a lot of unqualified representation. That brief test took years to fix. The convicted defendants appealed that they were represented by ineffectual council and some that got off later went on to commit bigger crimes. It cost millions of dollars to set it all somewhat "right."
One of my son-in-laws had the grandiose ideal of practicing environmental law but in our AO there isn't much in that area and what there is isn't for inexperienced attorneys. So now he's making something of a living representing druggies and drunks as their court appointed attorney. He gets about $500 a head, most get off from felonies by pleading to misdemeanors and others go to prison. He doesn't have any staff and works out of his briefcase and laptop.