Forum: Author Hangout

and competent is fine, but time to actually work on your case is probably non existent.

Public Defenders actually tend to be the most competent lawyers because they end up with an insane number of trial cases and settled cases both under their belt.

But they struggle from a lack of time and budget. Most districts try to cut their budget as much as possible in order to appear "tough on crime".

In many places there is also an 'alternative public defender'. This is a private practice lawyer who has put themselves on a list to be called in when there is an issue of conflicts. If for example 3 people are arrested for the same crime - all having committed it together or perhaps one of them but the DA is not sure which or doesn't care - each defendant is entitled their own individual representation and that means 2 of them might get an 'alternate'.

- That becomes vital if the DA offers them deals to rat each other out (which is very common, even when all 3 are innocent).
In the US, there is NO public defender for appeals. You have a right to get an attorney, but not a right to demand one be provided. So when it comes time for an appeal, you have to find a way to pay for one or hope for a pro-bono attorney. Pro-bono attorneys, that work for free, are only going to show up if your case matches some cause they care about, or they're trying to win good PR for their firm (in this second case you're likely to get some junior associate rather than a skilled partner).

Many of the "famous" lawyers, who will not be named by me, the celebrity ones, will take on way more cases than they can handle, more even than public defenders, and then they will send out first year attorneys who have just been licensed that have never worked a case at all to do the actual work while they happily collect money from the defendant.

One of the ways that actual criminals might find a public defender to seem to be "less competent" is that they can see through your BS faster. So if you were caught running down the street away from the cops with a duffle bag full of marijuana a private attorney might believe you when you say it wasn't yours and you have no idea how it got there nor any idea how a full on reefer ended up in your mouth...
But a PD is going to call you on your BS and recommend you plea out. They've been down this road before - which you might not want to hear, even though it's the better advice to plea that out before a jury gets a smell of that joint.

I think in NYC the average public defender spends 10 minutes on a case before they're before a judge.

This is a sort of statement where context would matter a lot. Even with a private attorney you might spend less than 1 second with a client before being in front of a judge because if you're available at arraignment hearings you might offer to represent one of the people sitting in line to be arraigned.

Those people are basically walked out of the jail in a long line, where they go before the judge, get read the accusation, asked some very basic stuff like "do you understand or do we need a translator", and asked to enter a plea.

- The attorney would just stand up there in front of a mic with hopefully a podium on it that has some basic notes like "say this or that" on it. You just ask the "client" you've been handed if they need language help, if they have an attorney or want one, and tell them their plea options, recommending 'not guilty' because any other plea can start an irreversible process of losing liberty without getting to argue your case.

- Many of the "attorneys" at this stage are actually law students on internships.

AFTER this you will get to meet the clients and go through the case. But PDs will often have interns handle a lot of that and then keep themselves in the loop until a case has something about it that doesn't fit a usual pattern...

Note that in most cities, something like 90% of the crime comes from a very small repeating set of actors who follow the same fact pattern over and over again - so the vast majority of cases can in fact be handled with 'good representation' by just going through standard routines.

It's when you get someone in the other 10%, or even someone in the main 90% who has a unique fact like actually being innocent this time around, that the attorney in charge would step in and take over.

(and yes... people do reform, but police will keep hounding them for decades after that. I've seen a person who had a clean record for 40 years, but would get raided constantly because he was a big 'Aztec' full of tattoos of Jesus and hit children that white people couldn't tell apart from drugs and gangs... Pissing the judges off to no end that "why is he in my courtroom yet again if yet again he's done absolutely nothing, can you stupid cops not tell the difference between MS-13 and a kid that works at Apple visiting dad with the grandkids?)

Weirdly, the Prosecutor tried to "lower the charges" to "Driving Without License In Possession"... The Judge laughed at him, based upon the Officer's Testimony he had confiscated the License in my possession! My PD argued that since the DoL had issued me a valid WDL the Suspension was nullified (and that I had no responsibility beyond going to the DoL that had re-issued my WDL). The Judge agreed, and the traffic offense and suspension were Expunged from my record!

Prosecutors in the USA get promoted base on conviction rates. They look for "easy marks" - defendants that Juries will likely convict, defendants who are not well educated and easy to scare, and defendants they can "trick" into signing something before the PD can race over from whatever office the county has hid them in.

Where I interned (with a couple of attorneys and a judge in different years - all while a friend was a police detective in the same area at that time); the DA, Police, and Jail are all next to each other. The PD Is across the street and down the block. That might seem small - but PDs need to go through "security" at the front door whereas DAs who happen to have been outside (everybody on all sides went to lunch at the same diner, and often sat together too - unlike on TV cop shows, most of these people are friends even when they work opposite sides) are waived through.

I've worked cases where the defendant was told by the PD "don't talk to anyone until we get over there" after the defendant had requested to not talk to anyone and want their lawyer, and by the time the PD made it across the street, they were stopped at the door with a signed plea agreement from the defendant.

What they do is tell these guys "sign a plea and you will just get probation and we'll release you in time to be home for dinner."

- Which is true. Except once you're a "convicted felon" on 3 years probation you have no rights. You can be stopped and searched at any moment, and the tiniest infraction puts you in jail for whatever sentence they wrote in the fine print of that plea seal you probably didn't read... So cops start following those poor guys 24/7 because EVERYONE breaks the law on accident all the time. There are just too many silly laws.

Many law students seek to practice fields of law that do not involve Criminal Law. However, of those who do (except for a very few who have connections to begin working for a major law firm; or family firm) work for a couple of years as a Public Defender.

Yep. Even while in school.

Many of the top graduates actually go into working at a PD because they believe in the mission AND because it's like getting 10 years worth of litigation experience in a single year.

Top grads who HATE litigation go into firms for variations of business law. But the ones who love litigation become DAs and PDs. Many PD offices have such long lists of applicants that they can tell people to 'work here for free for a few years, and if we like you we MIGHT hire you, and people do it.
- That further weeds out the crop to only those lawyers who had such good credentials that working for free for a few years is something they can get someone to sponsor them for.

I've met a LOT of overworked PDs, but I've never met an unskilled one.

Working as a PD or a DA is also a way to put yourself on a list of people to go into politics or get judgeships.

After you are booked you now have a arrest record and even if charges are dropped that record stays in most cases.

An arrest record doesn't mean much, though. The one that counts is whether or not you've been convicted.

As for bail, that's what bail bondsmen are for, and why bounty hunters are still legal and in business today, because people jump bail way too damned much.

The police will use it as an excuse to harass you, especially if you've never been convicted.

47 arrests and no convictions?

No witnesses.

:)

I just posted about this in another thread. Cash bail is one fly in the ointment here. Bail bondsmen are not an option in cash bail cases (that's the whole point). In many cases the arrest and pre-trial incarceration is the disastrous part of the whole process. For many misdemeanors, the ultimate penalty will be a small fine and/or community service, and the fine can often be paid in installments. For someone who's living hand to mouth, those weeks or months waiting for a trial will cost them their job, residence, and quite possibly possessions - even if they're factually innocent of the charges. The system doesn't pay recompense for people who aren't found guilty and wrongly locked up.

So, they're innocent and out of jail - no job, no money, nowhere to live, and employers worried about that arrest record. What are the odds that the resulting trajectory of their life is going to be all that good?

Also, an arrest record can make an enormous difference for some people, unless you're in a jurisdiction where employers can't get access to them.

Exactly.

The bail system is more or less an outdated concept based upon the simple highly incorrect believe that wealth naturally flows to the morally superior, and poverty naturally flows to the morally inferior.

The wealthy pay their way out, the poor sit and wait or when possible take on expensive bail bonds.

It's yet another that wealth lets people escape justice, while poverty is punished simply for being.

A further terror in the system is that DA's use this to get people to plead out to crimes they are not actually guilty of.

"You can sit here and rot on a bail you cannot afford, and then you go to trial as a young black man/woman, just know the jury won't be... (*) so.. yeah... or you can sign this paper and go home in a few hours. All you have to do is plead guilty to, it's a felony, but we're only going to give you 3 years probation (**). Stay clean and you're free and clear (except you just signed away your right to a gun and your right to vote - which you may or may not ever be able to restore depending on what you just plead to and what the local jurisdiction says about that)."

- This is a VERY COMMON way to knock Black people out of the voter system by the way...

Even Kamala Harris, a half Black woman, when DA of San Francisco, loved to use this tool to take away the vote of Blacks in San Francisco. So when my friends who organize for the Dems came to me in excitement about her, as I vote Dem (I'm a liberal, and much as I hate the Dems I'm stuck with them as my only option in the 2-party system)... they were shocked when I referred to her as a race-traitor.

(*) If they've got a poor white person in there, the same tactic can be used by noting that the Jury pool's going to come from people that "can afford to take time off from work..." as in, people who will look at that poor white person and just see "trailer trash" - convicting on that basis alone. The tactic works on pretty much any defendant that is either poor or not white/asian or both of these facts. There's a reason jury duty pays so little - it ensures the jury is a combo of wealthy people and 'retired' people that are more easily swayed by "authority" and "fear".

(**) What they don't tell you about probation is that while on it the police can search you without cause at any time without needing any reason. And they will - because as I noted in a previous post, EVERYONE breaks that law at some point, there are just too many laws. So they WILL mess with you, and then they have you without even needing a trial because you already plead guilty.

In California only felons currently incarcerated in a state prision are ineligible to vote.

I am not sure, but I think I voted for that recently, precisely to stop this method of destroying the minority vote. That, or a recent ballot measure to expand recovery of voting rights.

The thing is that it is trivially easy to turn a non-white into a felon. Until recreational marijuana was legalized they would just randomly grab up a pile of non-whites, and anyone with a joint on them (which is most people in California) would be given the whole "you're black, the jury will be white and asian, and you're facing up to X years in prison. Or you can sign this plea to get probation and walk out that door."

I've worked those cases, and you're stuck telling some kid that yes, he's just lost his scholarship, his landlord can now evict him, employers won't want him - but it's that or prison because the DA is right, juries won't see him, just his color.

It is still the rule in much of the country and why places like Texas and Florida remain in the hands of the Klan politically despite having very high non-white populations.

The bail system is more or less an outdated concept based upon the simple highly incorrect believe that wealth naturally flows to the morally superior, and poverty naturally flows to the morally inferior.

The wealthy pay their way out, the poor sit and wait or when possible take on expensive bail bonds.

It's yet another that wealth lets people escape justice, while poverty is punished simply for being.

Conversely, when criminals are released within hours of being arrested, they are back on the streets committing more crimes. Sometimes, the criminals are intimidating witnesses, or even "Disappearing" witnesses. IF a criminal were to "merely" flee the area, at least that community would be at least temporarily safe from the predations of that particular criminal. Most criminals who commit frequent crimes (a very small percentage of people convicted of crimes commit a disproportionate percentage of crimes); commit them in "minority" (currently termed "BIPOC) neighborhoods! Tragically, it is often a Loud (as in media savvy) and frequently Outside faction that demands an end to "Police Occupation" and law enforcement in general rarely, if ever, Live in those neighborhoods! Politicians who are constantly on TV pushing for "Defunding the Police" and "No Cash Bail" and other related polices are Instantly on the phone DEMANDING LAW ENFORCEMENT WHEN CRIME OCCURS IN THEIR NEIGHRBORHOOD!

Bail is a method of encouraging the accused to be present for trial.

When a poor person has their car stollen they are in danger of losing their job, or being able to take care of a disabled family member. For years, in Washington state, a criminal must be Convicted SEVEN TIMES of vehicle theft before they are sent to prison. Not caught, nor just stealing seven vehicles, it requires 7 different convictions.

Crime impacts poor people and minorities disproportionally! Exploiters such as Kamala Harris, David Dinkins, Marrion Barry, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Jesse Jackson Jr., Kama Shawant, AOC, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Talib, Corry Booker, Elizabeth Warren, and Rachel Dolezal all have used, or are using their skin color (or purported racial identity) for Political and Financial advantage. After posing in front of the cameras with "crocodile tears" they then get into the back of their Limousine or Luxury SUV and have their driver and Security Guards with Firearms drive them Out of "Hood" and to where they live with neighbors who share One Color: GREEN of COLD HARD CASH!

Unlike the GOP who put on blue jeans and t-shirts and claim to be for the working stiff and then pass law after law screwing them.

Perhaps it's because I live on the "Left Coast" where the GOP has been the perpetual minority party for 50+ years; I can't recall seeing a GOP candidate in jeans and a t-shirt. Most GOP candidates or elected officials appear in Public in a Suit and tie, casual would be khakis or cords and a button-down shirt, with the collar open and no tie. Perhaps in "Farm Country" some are in jeans, boots, and flannel shirts. Women candidates or elected officials wears dresses, skirts or slacks and a stylish blouse.

Most GOP out here are Small Business Owners, farmers, and some veterans (male or female). Billionaires out here are the Democrats, along with "Activists" and Generational Clans of Politicians who have been in Politics since they were in their teens.

About 35 to 40 years ago the Democrats abandoned Farmers, Loggers, Union Workers and Small Business Owners. Nearly all Democrats are Billionaires, Activists, full-time Union Officials, Teacher's Union representatives, or Lawyers.

The only "right wing" guy who frequently goes around in blue jeans a a t-shirt is Tim E. an activist who is perpetually wearing a T-shirt proclaiming his latest Initiative. (I have mixed thoughts about him. Although some Initiatives he has championed have been popular and achieved decent results for ordinary folks. I just don't like how he comes off.)

Activists, mostly Leftists are the people I see wearing t-shirts and pretending to be "ordinary" folks.

I volunteer for several veterans' organizations, so I see more of politicians and bureaucrats than I would wish. BTW, I am expected to wear slacks or at least khakis with a button-down shirt, or at least a knit shirt with a collar. No jeans and t-shirts, nor Multi-Cam nor other cammies or fatigues!

There's a difference between hollywood movies and reality.

Even police will tell you that most of the real serious crimes in any given area are committed by a small number of 'endemic criminals'. Sometimes as few as 7 families in a city of a million.

Waves of criminals out there going after witnesses, committing new crimes right after they get on the street, and posing in front of cameras then getting in some luxury car - that's Hollywood.

Most of the criminals are poor, uneducated fools caught in some trap on a bad day. You can even see this if you watch a show like Cops - which was mostly filmed in one specific poor white community in I believe either Oregon or Washington state. The people they go after are usually doing stupid because they got drunk - making them easy marks. And while drunk they get them to sign waivers by telling them they're signing a 'release' without saying it's a release of rights to not be filmed, rather than to be released...

- But those poor fools, that's what "real criminals" look like. It's actually fascinating to watch interviews of some of the people that have been shown on shows like Cops, when spoken to months later when they were sober - they're often normal regular people sitting there in outrage over how they were used by the show, and had all sorts of papers shoved in front of them while they were drunk or in some cases medically incapacitated. It IS a lesson in "don't drink and be poor and alive"... but still, hardened criminals they were not.

To stick to 'Cops' for a bit, the show was eventually kicked out of that town it filmed in after a years long effort by locals. Politicians were getting too much cash and not willing to toss them, but the show was making the town look very bad. Not to mention the questionable ethics and legality of using waivers signed by people who were not sober. I believe that in at least one case police even kept someone from being allowed medical services until they had signed the paper.

The funny thing is though, the show actually reveals what "real world crime" is more like - an exercise in incompetence, drunkenness, and arguments that get out of hand.

Not organized career criminals. As I noted above - those tend to be a very small subset, and even they don't do the whole 'posing with cameras' thing you see in fiction shows.

Hollywood's police drama shows fear monger people. Most Criminals are not that competent. Most of them didn't set out with a plan to be on the wrong side of the law.

Conversely, when criminals are released within hours of being arrested, they are back on the streets committing more crimes.

Even if this were true (it's not, in the average case), it's not the end of the argument, because you're referring to 'criminals'. Many people who are arrested and given cash bail are not 'criminals'. Quite a few are factually innocent. Many more are generally law-abiding but committed a minor offense (traffic law, misdemeanor theft, etc) - which, yes, makes them 'criminals', but not the sort who commit violent crimes, intimidate witnesses, or any such thing.

People in that category would be terrified of being re-arrested in a system which waived cash bail on a first arrest but not on subsequent arrests (prior to a trial), and would go out of their way to avoid legal entanglements, not re-offend.

The issue here is conflating 'arrested' with 'criminal', and equating different levels of criminality.

There will always be tension between letting guilty people go free to protect innocent people from being punished. The question is, where do we draw the line? How much risk of an innocent being punished do we tolerate?

Secondarily, there is an issue where the consequences of the arrest and pre-trial incarceration represent a de facto punishment much more severe than the crime itself actually carries. Even if one is guilty of knowingly and intentionally committing misdemeanor theft, a first-offense conviction would not generally carry a months-long jail term, for instance.

Even if there were compensation, it might well be insufficient. The US has a poor history with regard to compensation for anything but the most heinous improper convictions.

It would certainly force massive changes on the system if the government were required to pay damages to those acquitted, or held longer than their sentence - but those changes would themselves probably result in more guilty people going free.

Even if this were true (it's not, in the average case), it's not the end of the argument, because you're referring to 'criminals'. Many people who are arrested and given cash bail are not 'criminals'. Quite a few are factually innocent. Many more are generally law-abiding but committed a minor offense (traffic law, misdemeanor theft, etc) - which, yes, makes them 'criminals', but not the sort who commit violent crimes, intimidate witnesses, or any such thing.

I don't know where you are, but where I live, some fifty miles from Seattle, there are not enough law enforcement officers to arrest criminals publicly committing felonies. Yesterday it took more than thirty minutes for a police officer to respond to a deranged vagrant who forced his way into a primary school and was trying to abduct a little girl. Although, it was reported that part of the delay was caused by the school principal who would not at first allow the police into the building. Recently, a vagrant threw an axe at a person who was part of a group of people offering services to the vagrants, addicts, and mentally ill, illegally squatting in city parks. At least he was arrested, but the prosecutor dismissed the charges "because he didn't hit anyone." Another criminal fired bullets into a business on Third Ave. that has been routinely robbed and vandalized; despite several police officers being stationed a block away due to several murders and other violent crimes a week before.

About a year ago there was a "Mass Shooting" in downtown Seattle. Three people were murdered, several others wounded. All three murderers/attempted murderers not only had previous convictions, and thus were Not legally allowed to possess firearms, all three were on parole at the time of the shooting. One had been arrested and released less than 72 hours earlier! Leftists keep demanding "MOAR GUN LAWS!" However, agenda driven prosecutors WON'T ENFORCE THE LAWS WE ALREADY HAVE!

Law enforcement officers have been directed to NOT arrest people committing "minor" Crimes. You can easily find and watch videos of criminals boldly walking into stores and stealing merchandize off of shelves and just walking out. Or loading shopping carts, and then wheeling them out without paying for the stolen goods. Drugs and stolen goods, still wrapped with price tags on are being sold in an open air "market" on Fifth Ave., despite complaints from business owners and other citizens. More than 100 businesses (and several apartments" in the "Japantown"/"International District" have been repeatedly robbed, many burned out too, and are now boarded up and unlikely to reopen. Hundreds of thugs who have committed assaults are released after booking. Scores of criminals who have committed dozens of felonies each, more than a dozen who have been documented to have committed over 100 crimes EACH are being routinely released. A nurse walking to work was assaulted by a habitual criminal, he tossed her off an overpass and onto Interstate-5 (fortunately she survived)!

Watch "Seattle Is Dying" by the center-left ABC affiliate in Seattle. It is now a year old, but still relevant. Murder, rape, and other violent crimes are way up over the last couple of years, compared to a decade or two ago.

I do understand that not every person arrested is guilty. There are also too many laws; many of them foolish, at best. Some two decades ago I was nearly arrested after I called 9-1-1 after I was assaulted by my at the time girlfriend, who attacked me with a knife. In the 1990's the Washington state legislature passed a law that if LEO were called to a DD (Domestic Disturbance) then "Someone Had To GO TO JAIL!" Almost always the man. Despite being the victim of the crime, the senior Sheriff's Deputy intended to arrest me within five minutes of arriving on scene. My "girlfriend" had runaway after I called 9-1-1. Only the female deputy, vociferously arguing with the senior deputy prevented him from handcuffing me. I gave them permission to search her purse, which she left behind in my home. Running her ID, they determined that she had assaulted another man (presumably a previous boyfriend). Even then the female deputy had to dissuade the senior deputy from arresting me! He stated, "This has been Reported as a DD, so Someone Has to Go to Jail, and He is the Only one here!"

I have had to bail out some of my soldiers. I have also done "work-study" in the law offices of an attorney who had mostly low-income clients, and also did a lot of pro-bono cases. So, I do know that some people are wrongly accused.

One of the biggest lie in America is the quote " You are presumed innocent until proven guilty."

From the moment a cop puts handcuffs, on you are treated as if you are guilty.

I don't know if this is true, just something I saw in passing in an article a decade ago... that in countries where the system says "innocent until proven guilty" the public tends to presume the person was guilty, and in countries with "guilty until proven innocent" the public presumes the opposite.

That probably only applies to countries with 'free and fair elections' though, and not dictatorships. Or maybe it applies even more in dictatorships but nobody's about to admit that in public...