
Detroit’s Indigent Defense System Fails Poor Defendants - danso
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2019/08/01/one-lawyer-five-years-3-802-cases
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chrisco255
“Probably 95 percent of the people that are charged with something are guilty
of something,” she asserted. “They may not be guilty of what they’re exactly
charged with, but they may be guilty of a lesser offense, okay? … And you have
probably 90 percent of those people who are looking for the best deal
possible.”

What a disturbing quote and very telling about the state of our justice
system.

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anywherenotes
There's a podcast, by the name: 'Serial', in season two they go into regular
courtrooms with non-fancy cases - fights, etc.

In one episode after the defendant has been found not guilty, the judge
presiding over the case berated them for not accepting a plea deal, and
wasting the court time. This is after the person has been found not guilty.

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mehrdadn
Is this typical in a normal court/with a normal judge? Or is this scenario an
outlier?

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lazyguy
The American Justice system is dehumanizing.

If you never have been involved as a 'criminal' in the USA court system it's a
really huge culture shock and extremely dismaying to be treated as human
refuse for the first time.

Most of the time we spend our time surrounded by people who care about us in
one way or another. Your friends, your family, your partners, etc etc.

Even out in public the people you meet tend to have a reason to care about
you. They are serving you or you are serving them for money.. so you have some
reason to care. Even if you don't know them personally and they are a complete
stranger there is almost always some reason, typically money, to be polite and
take them into consideration. Even if it's phony it's still caring to a
certain extent.. otherwise why put the effort into even being phony?

But when you are in jail or involved as a criminal... They have no such reason
to give a crap about you. It's their day job. They get paid the same whether
you are there or not.

In the court system you are treated with the same regard by court officials as
a janitor would treat a full trash can. You are something that needs to be
dealt with before lunch.

Sure if you are young or cute or innocent looking and it's your first time..
then maybe a Judge would be bemused with you and give you a break... But by
and large you are just a impediment between now and when they need to visit
the restroom or eat a sandwich.

You could be innocent, you could be guilty. It doesn't matter. Whether or not
you are treated fair or not it's not relevant to them. You are just part of a
process that needs to be processed. A button that needs to be pushed, some
paper work that needs to be filled out. Some statistic that needs to be
entered.

........

You going to court for some crime may be the most important day in your life.
It could mean the difference between spending the next few years of your life
in comfort with friends and family... or being stripped of all your rights,
dignity, money, career, car, property, house.. and thrown in jail for 6 months
or a year and then leaving with no prospects to basically be homeless after
dealing with a divorce.

But for the other people in court? Chances are they won't even be able to
recognize your face or remember you name in a day or two. You don't even be a
memory. You are less relevant then the guy that sold them chicken nuggets for
lunch.

If you are wealthy you could afford a lawyer who does have a reason to care
and will give them reasons to care because he knows the court process and
knows how to make it a big PITA to just brush you off... But that is not
really relevant for most Americans.

And on the Federal level they typically try to freeze your accounts so you
can't afford a proper defense anyways. Makes their jobs easier.

~~~
mehrdadn
> In the court system you are treated with the same regard by court officials
> as a janitor would treat a full trash can.

Is this really what you see while fulfilling your jury duty? I dare say it's
not the common impression people come away from the courtroom with.

~~~
buckminster
He is explicitly talking about the experience of the defendant.

~~~
sysbin
I assume OP is talking about cases where there isn't a jury as well.

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CamJN
> In the past five years, she has taken 3,802 cases, including 1,787 new
> felonies, according to data from Michigan’s Third Judicial Circuit Court.
> That’s more than one felony case every workday—excluding the ones involving
> simple probation violations, which Cameron also takes hundreds of each year.

3802/(5*365.25) ≈ 2.08 cases per day, every day in those five years including
weekends, not just "more than one per workday". There is no way these cases
are being handled adequately.

I get that the more than one a day refers just to felonies, but it's still
ridiculous.

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tyingq
She probably has a spreadsheet or similar that the DA has (off the record)
agreed to that calculates plea deals. Then most of the work goes to her staff.

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jandrese
She's a public defender. She doesn't have a staff. The state can barely afford
her wage as it is.

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socialist_coder
I'm pretty sure the article says she is a private attorney who gets overload
cases. These are all paid by the case so it is in the best interest of the
attorney to cut a deal quickly rather than do any kind of investigation or
work.

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jandrese
She's a private version of the public defender, taking on as many cases as
possible to get the check from the state for each one. It's still all about
minimizing costs while maximizing profits and not fretting about the little
things like guilt or innocence.

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tynpeddler
Here's a serious question, what's preventing the pool of public defenders and
the DA's from being the same people? Would lawyers in this position be
influenced to throw defense cases for the sake of their police and judge
buddies? Would they be willing to accept the potential professional
consequences of having an abysmal defense record? Such a system could provide
a lot of incentive for attorneys to maintain a more professional and
appropriate relationship with law enforcement, but there may also be
confounding factors I'm not seeing.

Philosophically, DA's and public defenders fulfill a similar role in society.
They both serve the public in fact-finding for criminal investigations through
an adversarial process before a court of law. Depriving defendants of
competent council severely undermines the entire process.

~~~
mirimir
In my experience, former DAs make the _best_ defense counsel. They know how
stuff works. And they have friends.

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mirimir
Those who've followed the cypherpunks list for many years know Jim Bell. Of
Assassination Politics (AP) fame.

So maybe a year or two ago, he proposed setting up a GoFundMe-style NGO that
would take _every_ federal criminal case to trial. The argument being that it
wouldn't take more than 10% (or whatever) to overload the system. And so
defendants would get cases tossed based on the 6th Amendment.

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ryacko
One billion dollars is spent per year on public defenders. The Justice
Department spends twenty-eight billion dollars.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/us/public-defenders-
are-t...](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/us/public-defenders-are-
tightening-belts-because-of-steep-federal-budget-cuts.html)

~~~
mirimir
Also, from that article:

> The result, said lawmakers, judges and public defenders, are court delays
> that might violate defendants’ rights to speedy trials and could lead to the
> dismissal of criminal cases.

That does imply that the system is close to overload.

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rmason
This type of system is very prevalent in Michigan. In the Lansing area things
got so bad there was a successful push to establish an office of public
defender with full time attorneys. Probably not enough public defenders, but a
huge step up from where they were before.

[https://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/local/2018/12...](https://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/local/2018/12/11/assistant-
prosecutor-named-chief-public-defender-ingham-county/2280778002/)

This type of system is what should happen in Detroit, but only if the public
pushes hard for it will they find the funds.

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crooked-v
Wow, that text is really huge. I had to hit zoom out by two levels to make it
actually readable.

~~~
warent
It's refreshing to actually see a font on a site that doesn't give me a
headache to read!

