Fight ‘Em ‘Til We Can’t

Almost anyone involved with the Office of the State Public Defender in Montana can tell you: This first 18 months has been a little rocky. There’s not enough money and that means there’s not enough people or other resources to fulfill the mandates set for the Office by the legislature and the ACLU case that started this whole ball rolling. Of course, those are the same problems plaguing indigent defense systems nationwide; usually it’s just a matter of degree. Take, for example, Missouri, where it appears things have truly reached a state of crisis.

That story doesn’t provide much detail, but it does suggest the attorneys are stuck between a rock and a hard place. The courts are saying they’re personally liable for inadequate or ineffective assistance of counsel, regardless of the fact that the legislature won’t provide them the resources they need to do their jobs. So what is a lawyer to do? Have they begun refusing to take cases? That might be a start. Of course, then the article says the legislature is “considering” a bill that would allow the lawyers to refuse to take case. Um, what? You mean to say there’s some law saying they can’t refuse? Even when their rules of professional conduct say they must refuse if they cannot adequately represent new clients? Whoa.

Obviously no matter how bad things seem, they could always get worse….

Meanwhile, it sounds like the Vermont Supreme Court just issued a fascinating opinion on speedy trial delays. If the news article is correct, it says that public defenders are part of “the state,” so delay caused by a public defender is attributable to the state, not to the defendant. Crazy. I mean, it actually might be a more fair way to look at it in many cases where a public defender’s heavy workload means he/she isn’t ready for trial and has to ask for more time through no fault of the defendant, but still, this decision would turn speedy trial analysis upside down in Montana.

A young man in Evergreen, MT (near Kalispell) is being charged with negligent homicide after a 19-month old girl he was supposed to be watching allegedly picked up the loaded pistol he had beside him on his bed and ended up shot in the head when he tried to grab the pistol back from the child. Whatever happened, this story is a very sad one.

Just two things: First, the JP up there set bond for this young man at $200k; if this had happened in Billings I would not have been surprised to see $500k or more. We’ve seen a couple $1 million bonds in the last year, which is insane.

Second, in light of stories like this, how can anyone seriously argue that the solution to violent crime is for more people to be armed? (E.g., here or here.) I realize the issues are not identical — guns in private homes v. guns in public places such as schools, but still, what seems clear is that more people w/more guns means more deaths.