Long Overdue Links

It’s good to have a post here every six months or so, don’t you think? In that spirit, and in case you missed these, here are a handful of great public defender stories from, oh, well, the last couple of months:

• Pubic Defender cited for contempt in Rochester, MN, for being unable to appear in two courtrooms at the same time. Many defense attorneys have experienced the friction that arises when judges decide to get in a snit because theirs is not the only court in the country, but this is taking it a little far. Does anyone have any idea how this turned out?
• There’s a lot of litigation in Missouri about whether public defenders can refuse new clients when caseloads get too high. It sounds like the debate is ongoing, but the Missouri Public Defender Commission is getting a new leader, so that’s something.
• The city of Chicago told its cops a couple of months ago that they weren’t writing enough tickets because the city needs more money. Yeah, let’s balance the budget with traffic tickets. Really?
• Peter Neufeld, co-founder of the Innocence Project, gave a great interview to Slate about how wrongful convictions actually happen. It will come as no surprise to public defenders that the fallibility of eyewitness testimony is a key, but he also makes a great point that many people are wrongly convicted simply because police and prosecutors (and witnesses, sometimes) just can’t admit they’re wrong.
  

  I think generally speaking it’s difficult for people to admit they’re wrong, and the higher the stakes, the more difficult it becomes. So what you really want to do is educate people that it’s OK to be wrong. It doesn’t mean you’re a fool. It’s not going to be the end of your life.

  So true.

• In Montana, critics (including some public defenders) say the 5-year-old statewide public defender system is still not working because of high caseloads and poor management. As a former Montana public defender, I can tell you — those people are working their asses off!
• Finally, for all of you PDs who feel like you don’t make enough money there’s news that “beyond household income of $75,000 a year, money “does nothing for happiness, enjoyment, sadness or stress,” and we know PDs all make at least that much so that must explain why we’re all so happy, right? Right? (-;