In a unanimous decision, the court ruled that a defendant’s criminal charges must be dismissed if the state has failed to provide a defense attorney for 60 days in a misdemeanor case or 90 days in a felony case, after the defendant’s first court appearance. The ruling could force the dismissal of more than 1,400 criminal cases.
As a practical matter, to be a lawyer typically you have to go to college for 4 years, go to law school for 3 years, and then take the bar exam. As a consequence, there really aren’t too many imbecile attorneys, as the system weeds them out. That said, the top-tier students tend to get “biglaw” jobs that pay a lot of money, and public defenders are generally people with more modest options, such that any law job tends to look good.
You shouldn’t read my message literally. I just meant the worst and cheapest lawyers whose presence will just be a formality, not a real help.
That is already how public defenders work.
seconding this: Ontario, Canada, removed the “duty counsel” obligation from competent working lawyers, & gave that work to lawyers who couldn’t compete as real lawyers ( based on both experience & background information given me by other lawyers ), & now you get “duty counsel” which WON’T DO THEIR ACTUAL JOB, so people who SHOULD have all charges dismissed, don’t get that, unless we hire a REAL lawyer, because the public-defenders won’t do what they’re supposed to do.
Idiocy.
& the whole industry of getting people convicted because they couldn’t afford a real lawyer … why should any jurisdiction which has integrity & LivingValues be doing that??
Obviously, just part of selling-out-more-completely, … bah.
Criminally-irresponsible “management” of our legal-system, in my view.
_ /\ _