Defense budgets
Andrew Cory
In the criminal justice system, there are two possible unjust outcomes: the first is a false negative. This happens when the guy is guilty, but walks. The second unjust outcome is a false positive-- a person is innocent and is put behind bars. It is impossible to ever rid our system of both of these, and unlikely that we could really rid ourselves of either of them. To make matters worse, by and large, to when we lessen the effects of one of these injustices, we tend to make the other worse. I am about to argue for a mitigation of the second problem, as I feel it is more of a concern that the first...
Let me take a moment, then, to explain why I feel it is worse. When a type 1 injustice occurs, we have a victim. When a type 2 injustice happens, we have at least 2 victims-- the original victim, and the non-guilty person who is now a virtual slave of the State (the only kind of slavery still legal under the US constitution, interestingly). Under both injustices, the guilty is still walking the streets, and so there is just as likely a chance for yet more victims...
I believe that a type 2 injustice is also more likely to happen. During the criminal justice process, the entire vast apparatus of the State is arrayed against a single citizen. This is a bit of an overstatement-- the CIA, and (I believe) the Armed Forces are legally barred from becoming involved. Everyone else, however, is able to jump on in-- from local police, county sheriffs, State cops, the FBI, ATF, CPS, ect. Indeed, recall that it was the IRS who brought down Al Capone. Imagine that all of that is brought down on (or potentially brought down on) the head of one potentially innocent citizen. That citizen is believed guilty by a single beat cop who, being human, is utterly fallible...
Between that citizen and unjust punishment is whatever legal team they can muster. Some defendants have US$8 million to spend on the greatest legal team ever assembled. Most have to make due with a court appointed lawyer. These lawyers are often overworked and nearly always despised. Offhand, I can’t think of a single criminal defense attorney who went on to a governorship, or Supreme Court judgeship. Granted, I am no legal historian, but this point bears thinking on: cops are loved, prosecutors are loved, defense attorneys are hated...
Public Defenders that public defenders are overworked is axiomatic. Indeed, in one famous case, the Defense attorney actually repeatedly fell asleep during the trial! This cannot be the best justice America can provide. I don’t think so, at any rate...
My suggestion is a simple one. For ever dollar a municipality spends on the District Attorney’s office, or any other prosecutor office, it must spend a matching dollar on defense attorneys. This would still not be entirely fair; the police would still be doing a lot of research that the defense attorneys would have to do themselves, but it would be a step in the right direction. It is simply not axiomatically true that anyone who is on trial must be guilty; Americans are no more infallible than anyone else. Therefore we are going to run into many cases where the innocent are put on trial. Let us be as committed to protecting the innocent as we are to prosecuting the guilty...
I think it's hard for people who have not witnessed a trial or studied law to understand how difficult it is to come to the truth. Rarely is a case obvious; more often you have to deal with conflicting viewpoints and unknown motives. So we do our best to not convinct the innocent, but, unfortunately, such a thing is difficult to do...
Secondly if the crime is commited ON a military base, the Feds can claim juristiction. They rarely do, but it is a possible.
Thirdly, if the crime occurs to Americans, or is suspected of being caused by Americans, while overseas the FBI and CID are called automatically. CID only if there is a US military presence in the country.
Al Capone is a bad example. The IRS was allowed to illegally get him for back taxes on illegal income, which at that time could not legally be taxed.
There are 3 sides to every story. Mine, Theirs and The TRUTH. Getting the 3rd out of the other two is very difficult, but that is why the courts are impartial, or presumed to be with mechanisms to correct any straying from the middle line.
If you make the assumption that for any given defendant, there is a 50/50 probability ACTUAL guilt or innocence, the "more money" argument makes sense, but this is usually not the case.
Convictions still require evidence that makes a verdict of guilty beyond a resonable doubt. It seems to me that your equating civil cases with criminal cases, but I could be wrong.
It wouldn't hurt rich defendants at all, because they're able to spend as much or more than the prosecution is already. What might be hindered is some of the petty prosecutions where the prosecution is just counting coup on the citizenry. Some scheme wherein a prosecution lawyer and a public defender were assigned to a case, and each prepared both sides, and didn't know until they came to court which they would be arguing (assigned by lot) might be interesting -- but not allowable unless the defendant was willing to accept the coin's choice.
Are you suggesting that the dollar for dollar match is based on attorneys? (i.e. NY has 4 prosecuting attorneys, therefore they have 4 defence attorneys working opposite them), or if the prosecutors office spends 4 weeks of resources (police, forensic testing, going door to door etc) in order to build a case, then those same resources should be spent in trying to proof for the defence that the defendant did not do it.
Either way I like it. The law is a formiddable beast and the everyday man can essentially be helpless when faced with it's full force. Justice should not be dished out based on your ability to pay for it, and no doubt victims families would be happier knowing the right person was in prison than not.
While this may help balance the field, I can't help but think that like many good ideas, this may be abused beyond belief.
Because "beyond a reasonable doubt" is just an idealistic myth, and juries are easily swayed by good lawyers on either side. Since, for most cases, the proscutor is more able (not innately, just far less overworked), they are much more able to sway the jury in the common case.
High profile cases that get media attention have really good defense lawyers, who are able to sway the jury. (Either because of a rich/celeb defendant or a pro bono lawyer looking for publicity) So in the high profile cases tend to sway to the defense.
I was on one where the defense lawyer was purely pathetic and the prosecution was eloquent.
We declared 'Not Guilty' because it was NOT 'beyond a reasonable doubt'. Because the prosecution's CASE didn't stand up.