Comments on: Selection, naturally

By: Ryan McKeen

Ryan McKeen — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 21:36:28 +0000

Even though it is the home of the Boston Red Sox, I’ve never thought of Massachusetts as utopia.

By: Lil Spicy

Lil Spicy — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 21:00:37 +0000

In my opinion, electing the public defender and the prosecutor is nothing more than a recipe for disaster. The general public hasn’t got a clue what either is required to actually do or what makes one qualified for either position. But more importantly, each position requires that the individual not be subject to improper outside influence.

Hypothetically, it could work, in a utopia….just like communism could work…it just doesn’t in reality.

By: Bubba--need a new sceen name, I think

Bubba--need a new sceen name, I think — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 20:34:54 +0000

Then there is the problem in Texas where county chief public defenders serve at the pleasure of the county commissioners. Dallas went through a rough patch this past summer when the commissioners shit-canned the chief and several long time assistant PDs (who have no civil service protection), and generally screwed up the office enough that several more attorneys decided they’d had it with the BS and left. In the meantime, Harris County (Houston) is debating whether to create a PD’s office and looking closely at Dallas’ recent experience. I don’t know the solution, but the PD needs to have some independence as an agency.

County and district attorneys in Texas are elected, BTW.

By: S

Sat, 06 Dec 2008 18:30:35 +0000

But we have to be very careful about how, and to whom, we hold the PDs accountable. PDs are not in the same position as prosecutors. Our chief responsibility must always be to our individual clients. There should be some budgetary accountability to the legislature, but we still have to make sure we don’t give in when the legislature wants us to trim budgets or doesn’t want to pay for experts if those budget requests will prohibit us from properly representing our clients. If given the chance, the general public would (probably) demand a PD who would pay too much attention to the public’s interest at the expense of the interests of our clients.

I can think of no justification for electing PDs. The general public just can’t be given that kind of power over how pd offices operate. (I also oppose electing judges.) I have not ever thought about whether district and county attorneys should be elected.

By: Jdog

Jdog — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 17:28:19 +0000

I don’t know about convincing, but there is an argument. Either you make judges/PDs/prosecutors etc. responsible — in the sense of keeping the gig, once they’ve got it in the first place — to themselves only, nobody, other special interests, or the voters, in elections.

All of these ideas are demonstrably stupid, just in different ways.