The non -constitutional part of the CA Criminal Defense System

From Robert GreenCalmness

This comment was originally published by CalmattersS Register about their ballots.

Californians accused of crime are entitled to an appointed defender if they cannot afford to hire their own. Thus, they are just like criminal defendants in any other country – protected, at least in theory, from The right to the sixth amendment of councilS

But California is one of only the four states that does not directly provide these lawyers or use state funds to compensate them. Instead, California leaves it to each county to determine the best way to secure and pay defense at the trial level and how much to distribute for decisive defense, such as investigations.

The county defense system based in the county means the power of the basic constitutional law depends not only on whether the defendant has money, but also where he lives in the state. This is unacceptable by accident.

There is an office of the State Public Defender, but it represents only people who summoning death sentences and some other clients after conviction. The Office acknowledges California is “a country with 58 independent indigile protection Systems without centralized financing, standards or data collection. “

Just over half of the California Counts have their own offices for public defender, with full -time lists, payroll attorneys and an assistant. The rest – most of them smaller, rural counties – negotiate criminal protection of private lawyers.

Each model can work when lawyers receive sufficient training, resources and, essential, supervision and monitoring, to ensure the quality of their representation meets constitutional standards.

And any model can fail. Freshno County has a public defender office, but more than 80% of his lawyers just over a decade ago signed a letter Saying that their workloads were so high that they did not have enough time to perform even the most basic criminal protection tasks – to interview their customers for their arrests, to interview witnesses and to investigate crime scenes.

In response to a court case, County in 2020 agreed To increase the distribution budget distributions. The important thing is that the state – also a defendant – has created and promised to finance a new division of the State Public Defender to help training and resources of testing, not only for fresco but also for all cities.

State also allocated money to the State and Community Council Distribute grants directly to the counties For preparation and protection. This step brought the state directly into the unloved public defense business, but only temporarily.

There were key restrictions: the money was for a three -year period, which ended last year. And it was only for 19 offices of the public defender. How about the 24 counties without offices for a public defender?

They appoint or contract with private lawyers to provide criminal protection. There is no inherent problem with this; Contracts can do a great job if they have resources to provide competent protection.

But 15 of these counties use a format of compensation that many countries prohibit because it is built in conflict of interest. According to a flat fee contracts, the counties pay a lawyer, a law firm or panel a certain rate to take an unlimited number of cases, usually for one year.

The fewer the contractor spends in any case, the greater the profit.

There is a deterrent to spend money on investigators. Or for training consequences for immigration. Or in tracking witnesses. And there is an incentive to put the client into an unfavorable law -based transaction.

Even lawyers who want to do the best work desperately for their customers, they may need to reduce some angles to keep enough money to make a living.

The arrangements for flat fees for negligent protection, without standards of implementation, are opposite to the guarantee of the Constitution for a lawyer of criminal defendants and must be prohibited.

A bill for this Clear the Assembly Public Safety Committee last week. Assembly Bill 690 by Burbank Democrat Nick SchultzA former Oregon District Attorney will also provide guidance for loading and executing.

This is opposed by the California Association of District Prosecutors, who claims that if the load is reduced or the compensation is increased for the defense attorneys, the same must be true for public defenders and district prosecutors.

But it misses the meaning. Any format that is built in conflict of interest is unacceptable. Flat fees contracts for non -remedial protection create a conflict of interest. The public defender’s services do not.

Removing a flat fee contract will not be cheap. The updated system can only work if the state expands its distributions to still tracks in counts after $ 3.5 million that go to the state public defender service. Schultz’s bill does not do this.

But this is a good step. In the eternal tractor between the government of California and the counties, the state must set standards and provide support as data collection and at least some funding if the counties need to exercise the independence and creativity expected of them. Otherwise, the Counts will do what they think is best, and what they can afford, and often it will not just be good enough to meet the requirements of the Constitution.

This article was Originally Published on CalMatters and was reissued under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Noderivatives License.