Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Detroit’s Indigent Defense System Fails Poor Defendants

themarshallproject.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 67 posts

Re: Detroit’s Indigent Defense System Fails Poor Defendants

#41

Post by wcunning »

mehrdadn wrote: post #30
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.

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

This is, so far as I can tell from following legal news, very very very common[0].

[0] Examples: https://twitter.com/Popehat/status/1090313239995400192

Re: Detroit’s Indigent Defense System Fails Poor Defendants

#42

Post by mehrdadn »

lazyguy wrote: post #40
mehrdadn wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The American Justice system is dehumanizing. If you never have been involved as a 'criminal' in the USA court system it's a really huge culture shock and extremely dismaying to be treated as human refuse for the first time. Most of the time we spend our time surrounded by people who care about us in one way or another. Your friends, your family, your partners, etc etc. Even out in public the people you meet tend to h…

> In the court system you are treated with the same regard by court officials as a janitor would treat a full trash can.

Is this really what you see while fulfilling your jury duty? I dare say it's not the common impression people come away from the courtroom with.

Re: Detroit’s Indigent Defense System Fails Poor Defendants

#43

Post by mirimir »

ryacko wrote: post #38
mirimir wrote: post #34

Those who've followed the cypherpunks list for many years know Jim Bell. Of Assassination Politics (AP) fame. So maybe a year or two ago, he proposed setting up a GoFundMe-style NGO that would take every federal criminal case to trial. The argument being that it wouldn't take more than 10% (or whatever) to overload the system. And so defendants would get cases tossed based on the 6th Amendment.

One billion dollars is spent per year on public defenders. The Justice Department spends twenty-eight billion dollars. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/us/public-defenders-are-t...

So it'd be a huge NGO, I guess.

Re: Detroit’s Indigent Defense System Fails Poor Defendants

#44

Post by mehrdadn »

wcunning wrote: post #41
mehrdadn wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This is, so far as I can tell from following legal news, very very very common[0]. [0] Examples: https://twitter.com/Popehat/status/1090313239995400192

I'll take a look at them, but given the sheer number of cases judges see across the country every day, and the fact that such Twitter user "Dumb(Stupid}Hat" would probably not post the ones that are doing their jobs ethically and professionally, I don't see how this implies this is very very very common.

Re: Detroit’s Indigent Defense System Fails Poor Defendants

#45

Post by buckminster »

mehrdadn wrote: post #42
lazyguy wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The American Justice system is dehumanizing. If you never have been involved as a 'criminal' in the USA court system it's a really huge culture shock and extremely dismaying to be treated as human refuse for the first time. Most of the time we spend our time surrounded by people who care about us in one way or another. Your friends, your family, your partners, etc etc. Even out in public the people you meet tend to h…

> In the court system you are treated with the same regard by court officials as a janitor would treat a full trash can. Is this really what you see while fulfilling your jury duty? I dare say it's not the common impression people come away from the courtroom with.

He is explicitly talking about the experience of the defendant.

Re: Detroit’s Indigent Defense System Fails Poor Defendants

#46

Post by mirimir »

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #39
mirimir wrote: post #34

Those who've followed the cypherpunks list for many years know Jim Bell. Of Assassination Politics (AP) fame. So maybe a year or two ago, he proposed setting up a GoFundMe-style NGO that would take every federal criminal case to trial. The argument being that it wouldn't take more than 10% (or whatever) to overload the system. And so defendants would get cases tossed based on the 6th Amendment.

The problem with this is that prosecutors have the discretion to offer more and more lopsided plea deals in order to fix the backlog of cases, and discretion to go after defendants that insist on a trial as hard as possible. Are you really going to turn down 6 months if there's a very real chance that you're going to get 25-to-life through a trial? If insisting on a trial means you spend weeks in prison and lose your…

Yeah, those were the main criticisms, as I recall.

In practice, only people who actually wanted a jury trial would participate. And I gather they'd get funded for bail and/or family expenses, plus representation.

Also, is it really likely that defendants who might get 25 to life are being offered six months?

Re: Detroit’s Indigent Defense System Fails Poor Defendants

#47

Post by AnimalMuppet »

dv_dt wrote: post #13
ProCicero wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you work with the assumption that police usually only arrest a person when they have strong evidence that person actually committed the crime, it's not that surprising. Whether that is a good working assumption to begin with is another debate.

It's a poor assumption that violates due process and presumption of innocence. Applying the assumption makes our current justice system act in the manner that is similar to some of the original complaints of American revolutionaries about British colonial rule.

I think there are two distinct questions that you are co-mingling. The first is, do police only arrest (and prosecutors charge) people when they have strong evidence that they committed the crime? I think the answer is, "Yes, most of the time, in many districts" - but not all of the time, and not in all districts.

The second question is, "Should the court system act like the police only arrest guilty people"? And the answer is, absolutely not.

From your answer, I guess that you only cared about the second question. But the first question is the one raised by ProCicero, and is also an important question.

Re: Detroit’s Indigent Defense System Fails Poor Defendants

#48

Post by brewdad »

anamexis wrote: post #32
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…

The quote is "more than one felony case every workday," and the number of felony cases was 1,787, yielding 1787/(5*261) ≈ 1.37 felony cases per workday.

She gets 10 public holidays a year off and probably another 2-3 weeks of vacation/sick time.

1787/(5*236)= 1.51 felony cases per workday.

Re: Detroit’s Indigent Defense System Fails Poor Defendants

#49

Post by Natsu »

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.

> “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.

Yeah, why are we charging so many innocent people with crimes? 1 in 20 seems a bit high. Ideally, cases with weak evidence wouldn't go to trial.

Re: Detroit’s Indigent Defense System Fails Poor Defendants

#50

Post by [deleted] »

rhino369 wrote: post #37
IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

Not to get too political, but the FBI actually revised their memo clearing her because they accidentally used language which would have established she met all the elements of a crime. I.e. they used the words "grossly negligent" but changed them to "extremely careless." So I'm sure you can say they were trying to make anything stick.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN