An Unspeakable Issue
Funding public defense could do a lot for equal justice. So why are the candidates silent?
Recently, public defenders in New Orleans were forced to launch a crowdfunding page begging strangers to open their wallets so the office could fulfill its constitutional mandate. A 2009 report showed attorneys were limited to an average of seven minutes to prepare their cases. It’s not much better around the country.
Although every American has the right to an attorney, the U.S. spends less on indigent defense as a percentage per capita than every last country in Europe.
America’s public defender system is being crushed to death. And poor people are paying the price in coerced guilty pleas, unjust convictions, lengthy sentences and civil rights violations.
So why isn’t anyone talking about the problem in an election year? The Democratic platform recently added a line pledging help for states struggling to adequately resource public defense , but you won’t hear about it on the campaign trail. The Republican platform wholly ignores the right to counsel.
For presidential candidates, addressing the problem might read as endorsing crime. In the blood sport of American politics, the fear of crime is used to persuade. And in a world where victims are trotted out as props, addressing the rights of the accused are bad optics.
That’s a shame, because properly funding indigent defense could do much to alleviate America’s most dehumanizing problems: mass incarceration, racial disparities, human rights abuses, and unequal justice between rich and poor citizens.
No system in America has been allowed to starve like the system that provides justice for poor people. And make no mistake: it’s nearly all poor people. In most places, between 85–90 percent of all people accused of crimes qualify for public defenders.
It’s time the candidates began talking about the issues that matter to us. Earlier this year, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers launched the site I Care About Justice to ask the four candidates directly about criminal justice issues, from mass incarceration to mental health treatment. So far, only Jill Stein has responded.
