[Vision2020] Public Defenders Office

[Art Deco]

Bubba said:

...and the state can prove it.

Perhaps, it is not quite that simple.

When ethical attorneys decide whether to go to trial or not, they make a
guess about the probability of success.  A jury trial or even a judge trial
is a crap shoot.  Even with a very strong case, you sometimes lose; even
with a weak case you sometimes win.

There are many variable factors at work:

The competence of the attorneys,
The experience of the attorneys,
The preparation of the attorneys,
The desire to succeed of the attorneys,
The perceived reliability of the witnesses,
The feeling of the judge toward the attorneys,
The care with which evidence has been collected, tested, preserved, and
presented
Etc.

>From the beginning with the investigation by law enforcement various
prejudices come into play: friendship, politics, religion, work load,
honesty, etc.

I'm sorry to disagree, but I do not think the system works well in a lot of
cases, e.g.  the guilty often get soft plea bargains due to the sloth and
lack of guts of the PA offices.

This is a complex question.  I don't claim to have the answers.  But I spent
sometime observing it in Boundary County, Idaho.  Some things I saw really
disgusted and saddened me -- law enforcement officers who habitually
perjured themselves, defense attorneys who were really unprepared,
incompetent prosecutions, people who lied to get on a particular jury, etc.

After discounting for honest errors, the amount and kind of perjury that
goes on in the courtroom is astounding.

Wayne Fox


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "bubba jones" <bubbajones9763@hotmail.com>
To: <vision2020@moscow.com>
Sent: Friday, January 30, 2004 10:00 AM
Subject: Re:[Vision2020] Public Defenders Office


> Sunil,
>
> Granted. The PD should do everything in his/her power to make sure the
> evidence can be proven and that the state hasn't violated anyones rights.
> If there are any questions regarding this then the case, by all means,
> should go to trial.
>
> By "setting guilty people free" I meant that the defendant knows he did it
> and the state can prove it - nothing else.
>
> B. Jones
>
>
> >From: "Sunil Ramalingam" <sunilramalingam@hotmail.com>
> >To: bubbajones9763@hotmail.com, vision2020@moscow.com
> >Subject: Re:[Vision2020] Public Defenders Office
> >Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 09:43:30 -0800
> >
>
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