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Most public defenders are competent at their job. Unfortunately, their job is to minimize the court's time spent spent dealing with their clients.
by lalopalota 4y ago
Most public defenders are competent at their job.
Unfortunately, their job is to minimize the court's time spent spent dealing with their clients.
- everforward 4y ago> Unfortunately, their job is to minimize the court's time spent spent dealing with their clients. I think this is the unfortunate reality of them being obligated to take cases even if they don't really have enough defenders. This is an interesting read [1]. The TL;DR of that link is in Montana the head of the public defender's office was held in contempt and fined for refusing too many cases because they don't have the staffing. I don't know what the judge wants them to do, other than providing useless, token representation to clear constitutional requirements. I.e. someone technically has representation, even if that representation doesn't have time to actually form a legal case and can only serve as a liaison for whoever makes the plea deals. 1: https://www.aclu.org/news/criminal-law-reform/if-you-care-about-freedom-you-should-be-asking-why-we-dont-fund-our-public-defender-systems https://www.aclu.org/news/criminal-law-reform/if-you-care-ab...