As any public defender will tell you, they are strapped for cash.  They need more staff.  They need to pay the staff better.  They could use some more investigators.  This is the Constitution on a shoe string, and the fact that they function at all is really remarkable.  After all, it isn’t easy to provide competent representation when you carry a caseload of 200 defendants. 

So into the allocation of scare resources steps R. Robert Samples, President of RMS Strategies, who writes  this article for the West Virginia Record.  Hat tip to  Andrew Lavoott Bluestonefor the heads up. 

According to Samples, every indigent defendant is entitled to a jury consultant.  And of course, when the defendant is indigent, we know who gets to pay.  You gotta give Samples credit for sliding his biz through the side door into the public fisc, since it isn’t every day that you get to find a whole new revenue stream for those collateral legal services to the indigent.

But consider that the State of West Virginia provides public monies for trial research for indigent clients who are being represented by the Public Defender’s Office. Our firm has conducted multiple change of venue surveys for clients of the Public Defender’s office that were funded by taxpayer dollars. In each case, the judge approved the expenditure because the indigent client is entitled-the same as everyone else-to adequate representation. And trial research, like a court-appointed attorney, is considered essential to providing this adequate representation.

But what’s in it for the lawyer?  According to Samples, if you don’t seek a jury consultant, you may be committing legal malpractice.  Legal malpractice!  Well, we certainly wouldn’t want to do that.

For most public defender offices, funding is an ongoing, daily struggle.  The harsh reality is that legislators get little bang for their political buck by announcing to their constituents that they have done a great service by allocating monies for the defense of criminals.  To put them in jail?  Woo Hoo.  To keep them from jail?  Boo.

While my feelings toward jury consultants are worse than ambivalent based upon my own experiences with their utility, they may well prove to have some potential to aid in the trial of particularly notorious and well-publicized criminal cases.  But if there’s money to be spent on jury consultants, then spend it first on adequate staffing of the PDs.  After that’s been accomplished, we can talk about bells and whistles.

As for Samples, I can’t blame any businessman for trying to drum up business.  And I will restrain myself from suggesting that your sales pitch is less than savory, as it plays on fear to suck some bucks from the bottom of the empty well.  But if it were up to me, you would be standing at the end of a long line of people whose services are far more critical to the functioning of the criminal justice system.