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Saturday, September 10th, 2016

The human toll of America’s public defender crisis

Author:     Oliver Laughland
Source:     The Guardian (U.K.)
Publication Date:     Wednesday 7 September 2016 06.55 EDT
 Link: The human toll of America’s public defender crisis
Stephan:   American is a nation of laws and justice, right? One hears it said over and over again. Unfortunately it's a lie we tell ourselves. In fact the subject of justice and fairness seems to be of no interest to either media or politicians, and that is reflected in the fact that the United States ranks 19th in the world for justice. Here is a report about one aspect of the truth we dare not speak -- the public defender aspect of the legal system. It is beyond dreadful, as this piece describes. And I think it is important to note that this article was published not in an American but a British publication. This is what we look like to the rest of the world.

justice-statue“What if I’d had more time?” Across the US, it is the question public defenders often find themselves asking the most. Would a young, pregnant African American woman in Lexington, Kentucky, who faces minor fraud charges laid down in April still be in jail if her lawyer had the time to appeal against an impossible $40,000 bail bond?

Could the 50-year-old illiterate white man in Cole County, Missouri, charged in August with vehicular assault and facing over a decade in prison, ever be assigned an attorney with the resources to defend him?

How many of the 30 defendants present for a single “mass plea” hearing in Louisiana’s 16th judicial district in June would have pleaded not guilty if they’d had more than 20 seconds of legal counsel?

In 1963, the landmark Gideon v Wainwright supreme court ruling enshrined the constitutional right for indigent criminal defendants – those who cannot afford to pay for a lawyer – to access legal counsel. But 53 years on, as the rate of incarceration across the country has […]

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