8 ms·

That is pretty much guaranteed to produce a poor allocation of funds. Every case requiring public defender resources will also require district attorney resourc

• adanto6840 11y ago
  Yeah, I realized that right after I posted. Seems easy enough to account for though, no? If 70% (or whatever XX% is) of cases are handled by a Public Defender, then you'd simply require that their funding is, at a minimum, 70% of the DA's funding...
• nradov 11y ago
  Also the district attorney has to deal with a lot of cases where they decide to just drop charges. That takes resources as well.
• segmondy 11y ago
  I think the defenders should have more. Usually when the DA decides to prosecute, they already have "evidence" Most of their work is done, all they have to do is present said evidence and in most cases win. The defenders tho have to work really hard to counter all and any evidence. e.g get a ticket from the police? that's evidence that you were speeding. you are paying the fine unless you put in effort to prove you were not. e.g. get arrested for drugs, guns. those will be seized, the DA will look at the evidence and prosecute. your lawyer, will have to do work to show that those are not yours, or that you were legally able to possess those, or some other way. it seems the public defenders do more work and should have the same amount of budget, if not more.
  • tempestn 11y ago
    Currently they have far less though, so guaranteeing at least equal (relative to case load) would be a massive improvement.
• a3n 11y ago
  Don't budget per office, budget per historical caseload. And the article states that most people do not have their own lawyers.