I'd settle for scorn AND bigger budgets
I've been waiting for this to go online, from Reason magazine, by Radley Balko:
No Money, No Justice - Do public defenders deserve scorn, or bigger budgets?
If we’re serious about giving everyone a fair crack at justice, indigent defendants need access to the same sorts of resources prosecutors have... If we’re going to generously fund the government’s efforts to imprison people, we need to ensure that everyone the government pursues is adequately defended and protected from prosecutorial overreach...
Huzzah!
3 Comments:
I can take scorn standing on my head. It's the lack of proper funding that's increasingly intolerable.
The 1932 case of Powell v. Alabama set the tome for the need for representation by a competent lawyer. We seem to have abandoned this ideal given the current state of indigent funding. We need a Supreme Court willing to embrace the spirit of Gideon v. Wainwright!
Grits for Breakfast has more commentary too.
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