Comments on: Gideon’s promise: Determining who benefits http://apublicdefender.com/2008/09/16/gideons-promise-determining-who-benefits/ Wed, 25 Apr 2012 01:43:58 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: Lil Spicy http://apublicdefender.com/2008/09/16/gideons-promise-determining-who-benefits/comment-page-1/#comment-39390 Lil Spicy Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:11:36 +0000 http://apublicdefender.com/?p=1561#comment-39390 In my experience, the "guidelines" reside in the mind of the particular judge. There are some Judges who absolutely refuse to allow the public defender to represent anyone who has posted any sort of bond. Those people are told to hire the bar attorney who is present (if it's a misd.), or get a date to bring in their own private attorney. Then there are other Judges in the courts who appoint the public defender whenever the defendant appears without a lawyer, no questions asked. There are NO checks on true eligibility at all. The only checks that I've seen are when the PD asks on the record what the bond is and proceeds to glare at the Judge after the clerk blerts out how much the defendant posted to get out of jail. There was one PD in my office who actually was forced to represent someone who posted $33k cash....the poor PD's annual salary wasn't even $33K! So it kinda runs the gamut where I'm at...but there are clearly ALOT more people getting free legal services than would actually qualify if there were any sort of uniform standard that was actually applied. In my experience, the “guidelines” reside in the mind of the particular judge.

There are some Judges who absolutely refuse to allow the public defender to represent anyone who has posted any sort of bond. Those people are told to hire the bar attorney who is present (if it’s a misd.), or get a date to bring in their own private attorney.

Then there are other Judges in the courts who appoint the public defender whenever the defendant appears without a lawyer, no questions asked.

There are NO checks on true eligibility at all. The only checks that I’ve seen are when the PD asks on the record what the bond is and proceeds to glare at the Judge after the clerk blerts out how much the defendant posted to get out of jail.

There was one PD in my office who actually was forced to represent someone who posted $33k cash….the poor PD’s annual salary wasn’t even $33K!

So it kinda runs the gamut where I’m at…but there are clearly ALOT more people getting free legal services than would actually qualify if there were any sort of uniform standard that was actually applied.

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