If an alien landed on planet Earth to watch these cases as they unfold without knowing anything about the roles of the judge, prosecution, and defense, they wou

If an alien landed on planet Earth to watch these cases as they unfold without knowing anything about the roles of the judge, prosecution, and defense, they would inevitably come to the conclusion that public defenders job is to assist in the processing of arrestees so that they can be sent to prison quickly and conveniently. > It was a sad reminder that the justice system is still very much imperfect, We don't have a justice system. We have a conviction system. When prosecutors run for office (haha!), they don't brag about all the times they thoroughly investigated an alleged crime and determined that the defendants were innocent and should have charges dropped, they brag about how many they've put behind bars. And, in some cases, it's turned out that those they bragged about were in fact innocent. Additionally, when appeals seem destined to exonerate someone already convicted, something like half of prosecutors will go to heroic lengths to protect those convictions even when forensic science makes innocence clear. > I would be terrified to face the US justice system without heavy weight defense attorneys Often, it's enough to have one at all. Public defenders will browbeat you to plead out, and if you insist otherwise, they'll just wink at you and you know they'll sleep through your trial. They exist to give the appearance of defense. The biggest and most important reform we might enact would be to disallow DAs from using plea bargaining for more than 3% of cases that come through in any given calendar year. The second biggest would be to outlaw bail bonding.