The New York Times editorial board has belatedly chosen to chime in on the conundrum confronting the head-on collision between Gideon v. Wainwright and the recession. This is important, since we wouldn’t have a clue without their comforting thoughts.
After expressing all the warm, fuzzy and painfully obvious things, such as “[p]ublic defenders’ offices always have been underfinanced and overburdened,” the Times offers a solution.
With states struggling to come up with financing for schools and hospitals, we fear politicians are unlikely to argue for significantly more money for public defenders’ offices. To solve the immediate crisis, new sources of support would have to be found — quickly.
One approach would be for states to increase the registration fees charged to lawyers. The private bar also must significantly expand pro bono representation. Such efforts alone cannot fill the gap. Ultimately, government must take responsibility. All defendants, rich or poor, have the right to competent legal counsel.
There ya go! The “government must take responsibility,” so that means “registration fees charged to lawyers” should be increased and the private bar should expand pro bono representation. Where does the part about the government taking responsibility come in? It sounds like they want to shift the burden of indigent defense from the state to the backs of lawyers. Does it sound that way to you too?
Hold on. Wait a sec. I think I got it. The answer to fulfilling society’s problems should fall on the next closest occupation/profession. Physicians should treat all poor patients for free because health insurers charge too much (and get to enjoy really cool spa vacations). Stock brokers will naturally have to pay their customers to make trades, given that they’ve got nothing left in their 401(k)s. Banks will be paying the mortgages on behalf of homeowners with negative equity. And the New York Times will be distributing its paper for free above 89th Street.
What? That’s not what the Times had in mind? Lawyers should carry society’s responsibility because . . . they’re lawyers? Why not cops tithe 10% of their salary toward indigent defense. Maybe prosecutors and judges too? No?
Listen, Punch. Most criminal defense lawyers have been giving until it bleeds for most of their career. It’s the nature of what we do. Most civil lawyers couldn’t defend an accused if their life depended on it, so even if it was their responsibility to do so, it wouldn’t help. But most importantly, this is not a lawyer responsibility. This is a societal responsibility. So don’t dump society’s burden on our shoulders, as if we’re the only ones who should pay to enjoy life in a constitutional democracy.
Bite me.
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The mission of an attorney is to solve problems. This is work to us. Criminal defense is one of hundreds of specialties in the profession, just as medicine has its hundreds of specialties. Isn’t that true? I explain the concept to people with problems routinely, and they grasp it, when I decline representation for their divorce cases, workplace discrimination, breach of contract, etc. etc.
So. Would Punch hire a pediatrician to do his bypass surgery? No?
Has he or anyone at the Grey Lady ever worked at solving someone else’s problems? Have they ever tied themselves in knots avoiding making someone else’s problems worse? How about without the hope of an income? To touch on the analogy, at heart attack age, no less? Somehow I doubt it. A topic for your next journalism class.
I dunno. I kind of like the idea of dealing with the cost of medical care for the indigent by increasing MDs’ licensing fees. Surely, nothing could go wrong with that, either.
The best solution, probably, is a mugger’s tax — ten percent, say, off the top.
Forgetting the obviously braindead stuff, how about the bit more subtly braindead stuff?
While I’m all in favor of lawyers doing pro bono stuff — and I know a lot do a lot — I’m not sure how effective a general increase on pro bono work would be in this. A family practice lawyer of my acquaintance does a lot of pro bono work, but refers the possibility of him doing pro bono legal defense as “malpractice not waiting to happen, because I wouldn’t do it.”
As to the NYTimes being given out for free, I think that’s a great idea; might help the fish industry recover.
Now I remember why, when in college, we referred to the NYT as the Uptown Daily Worker.
The bite me part was nice, but the prev. paragraph was a thing of beauty. 🙂
Just my addition from the peanut gallery.
Steve
Thanks Steve. I was a little concerned that Punch wouldn’t read the whole thing, being a busy man and all, so I wanted to find a shorthand way of letting him know how I felt. I hope he realizes it’s from the heart.
And your headline is in the style of the much more respectable local-to-you paper. 🙂
Exactly! Wow, do you really know your periodicals or what?
I try to keep up with the obscure ones. Not every city can have the Strib and Skyway News, after all.
Solution = tying public defender financing to the funding received by their counterparts in the prosecutor’s office.
Yes it is. I couldn’t do better!
Well, that would work from a defense POV, but is there some reason to believe, in theory, that creating reasonable doubt about any requirement in a charge should take as much resources as proving every element of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt?
(I’m in favor of adequate defense for the indigent and everybody else, but your solution sounds Menckian to me.)
Perhaps it’s just the opposite. The prosecution only brings cases that it feels reasonably certain it can win, putting the defense to the test in only cases where the scales are already tipped in favor of the prosecution. That means that defense must work harder, and without benefit of the law enforcement apparatus that facilitates prosecution, to mount a challenge.
If anything, Lee may be understating the need for balance, unless the public defenders get their own police force as well.
I’m not proposing a dollar for dollar match, but a formula that takes into account the budget of the DA’s office when determining the Public Defender’s budget. Ultimately, a lot of the problems with funding for public defender’s offices could be mitigated by cutting the funding of the prosecutors so they couldn’t spend so much time and resources prosecuting de minimis conduct to the hilt. I’d have a lot more time to deal with my serious cases if I didn’t have to go to trial over 11 milligrams of heroin where the prosecution is offering 3 years.