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Detroit’s Indigent Defense System Fails Poor Defendants

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Re: Detroit’s Indigent Defense System Fails Poor Defendants

#21

Post by jandrese »

tyingq wrote: post #12
CamJN wrote: post #3

> In the past five years, she has taken 3,802 cases, including 1,787 new felonies, according to data from Michigan’s Third Judicial Circuit Court. That’s more than one felony case every workday—excluding the ones involving simple probation violations, which Cameron also takes hundreds of each year. 3802/(5*365.25) ≈ 2.08 cases per day, every day in those five years including weekends, not just "more than one per work…

She probably has a spreadsheet or similar that the DA has (off the record) agreed to that calculates plea deals. Then most of the work goes to her staff.

She's a public defender. She doesn't have a staff. The state can barely afford her wage as it is.

Re: Detroit’s Indigent Defense System Fails Poor Defendants

#22

Post by travisjungroth »

noonespecial wrote: post #7
chrisco255 wrote: post #4

“Probably 95 percent of the people that are charged with something are guilty of something,” she asserted. “They may not be guilty of what they’re exactly charged with, but they may be guilty of a lesser offense, okay? … And you have probably 90 percent of those people who are looking for the best deal possible.” What a disturbing quote and very telling about the state of our justice system.

Even more chilling considering that thanks to the state of the law today we are all guilty of some "lesser offense" right now. It would be interesting to calculate the "default jail sentence" of the average citizen if an overzealous prosecutor decided to randomly harass them.

In a three strikes state, the author of Three Felonies a Day would argue the default jail sentence is life.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704471504574438...

Re: Detroit’s Indigent Defense System Fails Poor Defendants

#23

Post by AlexCoventry »

anywherenotes wrote: post #9
chrisco255 wrote: post #4

“Probably 95 percent of the people that are charged with something are guilty of something,” she asserted. “They may not be guilty of what they’re exactly charged with, but they may be guilty of a lesser offense, okay? … And you have probably 90 percent of those people who are looking for the best deal possible.” What a disturbing quote and very telling about the state of our justice system.

There's a podcast, by the name: 'Serial', in season two they go into regular courtrooms with non-fancy cases - fights, etc. In one episode after the defendant has been found not guilty, the judge presiding over the case berated them for not accepting a plea deal, and wasting the court time. This is after the person has been found not guilty.

Got a more specific reference? I'd like to hear that.

Re: Detroit’s Indigent Defense System Fails Poor Defendants

#24

Post by awillen »

tynpeddler wrote: post #19

Here's a serious question, what's preventing the pool of public defenders and the DA's from being the same people? Would lawyers in this position be influenced to throw defense cases for the sake of their police and judge buddies? Would they be willing to accept the potential professional consequences of having an abysmal defense record? Such a system could provide a lot of incentive for attorneys to maintain a more…

This is a really interesting thought - even having DAs spend 10% of their time on the other side of the aisle would probably help ensure less of an us-vs-them mentality. Plus being on the other side once in a while would likely make them better at prosecuting the cases that they're working on.

Re: Detroit’s Indigent Defense System Fails Poor Defendants

#25

Post by socialist_coder »

jandrese wrote: post #21
tyingq wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She probably has a spreadsheet or similar that the DA has (off the record) agreed to that calculates plea deals. Then most of the work goes to her staff.

She's a public defender. She doesn't have a staff. The state can barely afford her wage as it is.

I'm pretty sure the article says she is a private attorney who gets overload cases. These are all paid by the case so it is in the best interest of the attorney to cut a deal quickly rather than do any kind of investigation or work.

Re: Detroit’s Indigent Defense System Fails Poor Defendants

#26

Post by socialist_coder »

tynpeddler wrote: post #19

Here's a serious question, what's preventing the pool of public defenders and the DA's from being the same people? Would lawyers in this position be influenced to throw defense cases for the sake of their police and judge buddies? Would they be willing to accept the potential professional consequences of having an abysmal defense record? Such a system could provide a lot of incentive for attorneys to maintain a more…

DA's can actually do a lot to help these kinds of defendants from the DA side, because they can be more lenient, merciful, etc.

The problem sometimes is that the boss DA is still the boss and can just tell any of his assistant DAs to go after people so he looks "tough on crime". So even if all the ADAs are very empathetic, they aren't the ones making every decision.

I've listened to a lot of interviews with DAs and a lot of them actually do want to help these kinds of poor defendants, so they start out as public defenders. But then they realize that the real power is in the DA's office with sentencing and charging and such, so they switch over.

Re: Detroit’s Indigent Defense System Fails Poor Defendants

#27

Post by dv_dt »

AlexCoventry wrote: post #23
anywherenotes wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a podcast, by the name: 'Serial', in season two they go into regular courtrooms with non-fancy cases - fights, etc. In one episode after the defendant has been found not guilty, the judge presiding over the case berated them for not accepting a plea deal, and wasting the court time. This is after the person has been found not guilty.

Got a more specific reference? I'd like to hear that.

https://serialpodcast.org/

Re: Detroit’s Indigent Defense System Fails Poor Defendants

#28

Post by jandrese »

socialist_coder wrote: post #25
jandrese wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She's a public defender. She doesn't have a staff. The state can barely afford her wage as it is.

I'm pretty sure the article says she is a private attorney who gets overload cases. These are all paid by the case so it is in the best interest of the attorney to cut a deal quickly rather than do any kind of investigation or work.

She's a private version of the public defender, taking on as many cases as possible to get the check from the state for each one. It's still all about minimizing costs while maximizing profits and not fretting about the little things like guilt or innocence.

Re: Detroit’s Indigent Defense System Fails Poor Defendants

#29

Post by IfOnlyYouKnew »

noonespecial wrote: post #7
chrisco255 wrote: post #4

“Probably 95 percent of the people that are charged with something are guilty of something,” she asserted. “They may not be guilty of what they’re exactly charged with, but they may be guilty of a lesser offense, okay? … And you have probably 90 percent of those people who are looking for the best deal possible.” What a disturbing quote and very telling about the state of our justice system.

Even more chilling considering that thanks to the state of the law today we are all guilty of some "lesser offense" right now. It would be interesting to calculate the "default jail sentence" of the average citizen if an overzealous prosecutor decided to randomly harass them.

This is a somewhat common sentiment, probably because it's cynical enough to conform with people's prior conceptions. But I doubt it is actually true.

Consider, for example, the various congressional investigations of Hilary Clinton in 2014/2015. If everybody was guilty of some crime(s) punishable by jail time, it would follow that some of those overly brought criminal statues would have come up in those proceedings, considering there were any number of high-powered lawyers tasked with finding anything against her that would stick.

(The Clinton example may be imperfect because of partisanship, but I can't currently think of any other widely-known case where prosecutors were trying to "throw the book" at someone. I'm specifically not focussing on the main issues of those investigations, because those could never apply to the average person, so resist the urge to argue e-mail servers.)

Re: Detroit’s Indigent Defense System Fails Poor Defendants

#30

Post by mehrdadn »

anywherenotes wrote: post #9
chrisco255 wrote: post #4

“Probably 95 percent of the people that are charged with something are guilty of something,” she asserted. “They may not be guilty of what they’re exactly charged with, but they may be guilty of a lesser offense, okay? … And you have probably 90 percent of those people who are looking for the best deal possible.” What a disturbing quote and very telling about the state of our justice system.

There's a podcast, by the name: 'Serial', in season two they go into regular courtrooms with non-fancy cases - fights, etc. In one episode after the defendant has been found not guilty, the judge presiding over the case berated them for not accepting a plea deal, and wasting the court time. This is after the person has been found not guilty.

Is this typical in a normal court/with a normal judge? Or is this scenario an outlier?
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