Do you honestly think that proceedings that could place a person in jail for a year could credibly be considered not a "critical stage"?
What if it were for you personally? A year of your life? Would you calmly agree that it's not a well settled constitutional right and happily wait it out?
I'm not saying it's a reasonable interpretation. I'm pointing out that the article tries to make it seem like one judge is throwing the Constitution out the window, while it seems more a case of a state policy of trying to save a buck at the expense of the accused.
There are a lot of shitty state governments trying to read stuff like Roe v. Wade out of existence. Singling out one particular judge who happened to make stupid comments in an interview won't change those policies. That has to happen at the state level.
Examples are important in a story. It's hard to get upset about a long critique discussing systemic legal policy. It's easy to get upset about a human face for evil in a position of great power and trust -- which is what this judge is.
The issues are far worse than this one judge of course, they are widespread as the article states but it's very nice to have an example of the thought process and behavior of some of these people for those of who haven't encountered the criminal justice system before or aren't trained in law.
> Singling out one particular judge who happened to make stupid comments in an interview won't change those policies.
Too bad, but starting with the destruction of the careers of people who should have exercised discretion may be what has to happen when the system is unresponsive. Too bad about whether it should be a matter for the people of that state. They don't get to run a legal swamp in isolation.
> They don't get to run a legal swamp in isolation.
Arguably they should get to do that, if that's what the people want. After all, framers never intended for the federal government to impose uniform standards on state justice systems.
While that's the Supreme Court's post hoc interpretation, you have to admit it finds little support in either the text or history of those amendments. It's unlikely the states that ratified those amendments realized they were giving up the right to set local standards of how to treat the accused, etc.
I would base minimum federal standards of local criminal justice and election conduct and etc. on the commerce clause, if it were up to me. Not meeting such standards amounts to claiming you should be allowed to build highways that won't accept heavy trucks. It would make it hard to do business nationally.
But, yeah, Reconstruction and subsequent events shaped those Amendments.
What if it were for you personally? A year of your life? Would you calmly agree that it's not a well settled constitutional right and happily wait it out?