No money, no justice

Reason online has what is essentially a book review of Kevin Davis’ Defending The Damned, but it also makes several good points on why public defender systems should have greater funding. An excerpt:

As U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black once wrote, if the state aims to take away someone’s freedom, the defendant has an “absolute, unqualified right to compel the State to investigate its own case, find its own witnesses, prove its own facts, and convince the jury through its own resources. Throughout the process, the defendant has a fundamental right to remain silent, in effect challenging the State at every point to ‘Prove it!’?”

The fundamental function of government is to secure the rights of its citizens. There has never been much problem generating support for the law enforcement side of that responsibility: courts, police, prosecutors, and prisons. The government seems eager to protect us from criminals. But it’s also obliged not to violate our rights in the process.

If we’re serious about giving everyone a fair crack at justice, indigent defendants need access to the same sorts of resources prosecutors have, including their own independent experts and investigators. If we’re going to generously fund the government’s efforts to imprison people, we need to ensure that everyone the government pursues is adequately defended and protected from prosecutorial overreach. The ongoing stream of exonerations in felony cases suggests we’re a long way from that goal.

Kevin Davis was a guest here on Monday Musings and Greg reviewed the book here. Thanks to Skelly for the link.