The problem with your thesis, while defendants are guaranteed a right to defense counsel, there is no right to superior, not overworked defense counsel. The art of practicing law is cutting a deal. And 3-5 is a better deal than 7-10. Public defenders, and 1A attorneys are not incompetent. But most, if not all, the defendants they represent in court are guilty of the crimes for which they have been accused.
You want to attack the social issues that create those criminals, you are welcome to do so. However, conflating the criminality, the breaking of law and subsequent conviction with those social issues provides no excuse in the eyes of the law. Understood, you don't like that. Therefore you must advise altering the law. Go to work. You will be facing opposition of all those who have enjoyed how that bit of social engineering has effected bail reform based on the poverty of the criminals. Criminals released because of the reform, committing the same crime and worse the next day on the streets. Simply wonderful for their victims, just as poor as their predators. Delightful. We are all joyed by how you speak for those victims rights to breath.
You are attributing opinions to me that I haven't expressed. Most, if not all, the clients of criminal defense attorneys, period, are guilty. The premise was simple - there's a different justice system for the wealthy than the poor. If you're being honest, you can hire the best defense attorney in NY if you or a loved one is charged, and you'll do that, because you know he or she has a FAR better chance of getting you or yours a good deal, putting up a vigorous defense. So I know you agree with that premise, you just don't like it being acknowledged.
This law was reversed by this judge because he opined the payment of restitution, and court penalties and fees was akin to a poll tax, not an issue of bigotry. Not because of any other perceived inequities of law. And that is still nothing like Jim Crow laws, which demanded separate bathrooms and water fountains for those who were judged non-white.
That was part of his reasoning, but an equally big part of the opinion, as you know if you read it, was that it was an impossible burden to meet, even if he had determined that paying 'taxes' by any name was not a poll tax. The state literally could not determine what was owed by most of the 17 plaintiffs, given weeks to figure that out, so even if they showed up check in hand, an unlimited bank account, MOST couldn't meet the state's burden with any certainty.
And of course I was comparing this literally impossible burden for many former felons (and the judge used that word repeatedly for many granted the 'right' to vote by the Florida constitution), to the voting rules in place in Jim Crow, not to bathrooms, restaurants, etc. Those literacy tests weren't intended to test literacy but to deny voting privileges for virtually all blacks and many poor uneducated whites. The burden was intended to be unreachable by these undesirables in the eyes of those in power, and it was impossible to meet for almost all of them. Race in voting was a huge part but those rules impacted poor whites as well.
But the point was the judge went through 100 pages describing how the Florida scheme here is also virtually impossible to meet, from the difficulty to determining the amount, to inability to pay because they are poor, and the impossibility that Florida could timely process the registrations, with a conservative estimate that it would be
2026 before CURRENT applicants would see their applications approved or denied. That's either designed to fail the vast majority the amendment granted the right to vote, or coincidentally would result in it failing for a bunch of people the GOP could predict might vote Democratic.
uch:
