2 ms·

I agree with your last point, and was making it in a roundabout way. "How do we convict this guy if he can afford a good lawyer?" and "We'll definitely convict

I agree with your last point, and was making it in a roundabout way. "How do we convict this guy if he can afford a good lawyer?" and "We'll definitely convict this guy because he can't afford a good lawyer." are both troubling thoughts. Why not freeze the assets of everybody charged with a felony and appoint public defenders? The rest of your post I have some difficulty with. It's almost as though you're saying we don't even need a trial here because the facts are so obviously established. I don't believe it's yet been established in a court of law that any crime was committed, much less that this person committed it.

dsrguru 13y ago
> Why not freeze the assets of everybody charged with a felony and appoint public defenders? Agreed, but that would either bankrupt the government or make defense attorney a much less lucrative career and, therefore, greatly decrease the number of available defense attorneys. > It's almost as though you're saying we don't even need a trial here because the facts are so obviously established. I don't believe it's yet been established in a court of law that any crime was committed, much less that this person committed it. Not at all what I meant. On the contrary, I meant that cases when we the outside viewers realistically know that the defendant isn't clean are probably not the best cases for highlighting the need for a competent defense.
tptacek 13y ago
One answer to this is that the DOJ can't in fact freeze the assets of anybody; they have to convince a court to do so, and it's for this reason among many that the courts are an entirely separate branch of government. To the extent that you can't trust the courts to be impartial, there's really no part of the criminal justice system you can trust. It should not in general be in the best interests of the federal court system to allow federal prosecutors to abuse asset seizures to prevent defendants from mounting competent defenses. Among other things, such abuses set judges up for costly appeals.
- smsm42 13y ago
  Civil forfeiture requires only reasonable suspicion (preponderance of evidence) and does not require criminal conviction. So the bar for taking the assets is much lower than the bar for conviction. >>> It should not in general be in the best interests of the federal court system to allow federal prosecutors to abuse asset seizures to prevent defendants from mounting competent defenses. Among other things, such abuses set judges up for costly appeals. It is very well in the interest of the prosecutors, in order to extort plea bargain. And appealing the guilty plea would probably have a very low chance for success.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    Prosecutors don't work for the court.
001sky 13y ago
At some stage, there is a constitutional rights issue. An attornery is a representative of the person in court. Ie, he is the mechanism for the client to express freely his position (defense). Limiting this is a free-speach issue, at some stage. You are forcing the defendent to speak through someone paid for by the government. While this is arguably true today for people in poverty, it seems a bit more uncouth to force this for each and every citizen under all conditions. Even those without resources, for example, could in theory arrange for a pro-bono intervention. But such intervention must by necessity free-ride on fee-earning clients. And without a viable business, there would be no-one to do the pro-bono work.

dsrguru 13y ago

> Why not freeze the assets of everybody charged with a felony and appoint public defenders? Agreed, but that would either bankrupt the government or make defense attorney a much less lucrative career and, therefore, greatly decrease the number of available defense attorneys. > It's almost as though you're saying we don't even need a trial here because the facts are so obviously established. I don't believe it's yet been established in a court of law that any crime was committed, much less that this person committed it. Not at all what I meant. On the contrary, I meant that cases when we the outside viewers realistically know that the defendant isn't clean are probably not the best cases for highlighting the need for a competent defense.

tptacek 13y ago

One answer to this is that the DOJ can't in fact freeze the assets of anybody; they have to convince a court to do so, and it's for this reason among many that the courts are an entirely separate branch of government. To the extent that you can't trust the courts to be impartial, there's really no part of the criminal justice system you can trust. It should not in general be in the best interests of the federal court system to allow federal prosecutors to abuse asset seizures to prevent defendants from mounting competent defenses. Among other things, such abuses set judges up for costly appeals.

smsm42 13y ago
Civil forfeiture requires only reasonable suspicion (preponderance of evidence) and does not require criminal conviction. So the bar for taking the assets is much lower than the bar for conviction. >>> It should not in general be in the best interests of the federal court system to allow federal prosecutors to abuse asset seizures to prevent defendants from mounting competent defenses. Among other things, such abuses set judges up for costly appeals. It is very well in the interest of the prosecutors, in order to extort plea bargain. And appealing the guilty plea would probably have a very low chance for success.
- tptacek 13y ago
  Prosecutors don't work for the court.

001sky 13y ago

At some stage, there is a constitutional rights issue. An attornery is a representative of the person in court. Ie, he is the mechanism for the client to express freely his position (defense). Limiting this is a free-speach issue, at some stage. You are forcing the defendent to speak through someone paid for by the government. While this is arguably true today for people in poverty, it seems a bit more uncouth to force this for each and every citizen under all conditions. Even those without resources, for example, could in theory arrange for a pro-bono intervention. But such intervention must by necessity free-ride on fee-earning clients. And without a viable business, there would be no-one to do the pro-bono work.