4 ms·

Your comments are full of hyperbole. It’s counterproductive, unless your goal is only to express the frustration of it all. Maybe that sentence prompts a knee

Your comments are full of hyperbole. It’s counterproductive, unless your goal is only to express the frustration of it all. Maybe that sentence prompts a knee jerk thought that I don’t want to consider how bad it really is, or that I don’t care about or have empathy for your friend. I assure you both are not true. It’s just counterproductive to say things like public defenders want to do minimum work. Is that because they are lazy? Or is it because of a budget/management/legislation issue that would better deserve to be highlighted? These are all not only complex topics but they vary wildly based on location and local vs federal government etc. The reasons may be different. The point is it would be more helpful to try and identify root causes and motivations, because that shows where the thing is broken.

joeax 9y ago
I personally sat in a courtroom and watched this unfold. In some cases the PD shows up at the last possible minute with some scant details about the case, asks the defendant how they want to plea, converses with the judge, then leaves. I never made an insinuation as to the "why", just the "what". Are they overworked? Definitely. And yes this is a large city, where the cogs are moving fast. I'm sure in a smaller jurisdiction there is more attention to detail.
jack9 9y ago
> Your comments are full of hyperbole. If only that were true
- WhitneyLand 9y ago
  What’s true is my response was a little callous and dickish, I shouldn’t post here after all nighters. But that doesn’t make the OP blanket statements productive. There is cancer, let’s try to understand it and use a scalpel before chemo. Maybe just naming the city state and jurisdiction? That at least potentially allows specific issues or causes to be discussed.
  - nindalf 9y ago
    I think any urban public defender's office struggles to cope with the kind of workload they see. They don't have the resources to take every case they see to trial so they try to convince their clients to plea bargain. I'm sure they're good people and they're trying their best, but at scale, it's hard to provide a bespoke, high quality legal defence.

joeax 9y ago

I personally sat in a courtroom and watched this unfold. In some cases the PD shows up at the last possible minute with some scant details about the case, asks the defendant how they want to plea, converses with the judge, then leaves. I never made an insinuation as to the "why", just the "what". Are they overworked? Definitely. And yes this is a large city, where the cogs are moving fast. I'm sure in a smaller jurisdiction there is more attention to detail.

jack9 9y ago

> Your comments are full of hyperbole. If only that were true

WhitneyLand 9y ago
What’s true is my response was a little callous and dickish, I shouldn’t post here after all nighters. But that doesn’t make the OP blanket statements productive. There is cancer, let’s try to understand it and use a scalpel before chemo. Maybe just naming the city state and jurisdiction? That at least potentially allows specific issues or causes to be discussed.
- nindalf 9y ago
  I think any urban public defender's office struggles to cope with the kind of workload they see. They don't have the resources to take every case they see to trial so they try to convince their clients to plea bargain. I'm sure they're good people and they're trying their best, but at scale, it's hard to provide a bespoke, high quality legal defence.