[Vision2020] The niceties of public defense

[Joan Opyr]

While testimonials to the courtesy and good manners of our public defenders 
are no doubt heartening to the recipients, they're really beside the point.  
The question is not whether our public defenders are nice.  I've been known 
to be nice.  Grizzly bears are nice at a distance.  Charles Manson is so 
nice the prison officials have let him have a pet parrot.  Nice might be a 
bonus in a public defender, but it isn't a job qualification.  Public 
defenders are not there to make life easy for law enforcement, nor are they 
there to make friends with the prosecutor.  They are there to serve the best 
interests of their clients.  Hang nice.  If I were up on a charge, I'd want 
a fire-breathing dragon with piles and a pitchfork.

No, I don't want murderers and rapists walking the streets, but neither do I 
want to see innocent people banged up in jail.  While I don't take the 
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm approach to criminality (I've known too many 
unregenerate baddies), a cursory look at the results of the Innocence 
Project is more than enough to make me less than sanguine about really 
getting justice for the poor and the uneducated.  Ideally, you should get 
the same level of service from your public defender that you'd get if you 
could afford Alan Dershowitz.  There should be no such thing as differential 
justice for the man with the bloated checkbook.

However, as much as I'd like to reside in a social utopia, I am forced to 
live here with everyone else on Planet Reality.  We have holes in the ozone 
layer, big money in politics, and millionaire murderers who run around 
playing golf while innocent men do time on death row.  This is an imperfect 
world, but it's not too much to expect that everyone on the public dime do 
the best job he or she can – police, prosecutor, public defender, and judge. 
  If they do, then we all come out ahead.

If they don't . . . well, here in Latah County, how would we know?  I want 
more than anecdotal evidence.  I know when the roads are properly plowed 
because I can get out there and see for myself.  I think it's only 
reasonable that our county commissioners should ask for detailed reporting 
from all of their employees.  It's no secret that I have strong and serious 
disagreements with Greg Dickison, but I'd say this even if he shared a 
practice with Mahatma Gandhi.

Public scrutiny of public expenditures is a good thing.  Unless, of course, 
you're the ex-mayor of Boise.

Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment

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