Preview

Over Burned Public Defense Case Study

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
378 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Over Burned Public Defense Case Study
Role of Geographical Location in the Quality of Defense Provided by the Public Defender
Different jurisdictions, states and counties, allocate budget different for their public defense system. Where finances are adequate, public representation is bound to be of good quality as opposed to where resources are so squeezed (Neubauer, Fradella, 2015).
Contribution of Over Burned Public Defense to Wrongful Conviction
Defense lawyers fail to prepare for trial or to do proper investigations on the crime and the defendant’s background. The result is inability to interrogate the witnesses and experts and as such cases end up in wrongful convictions (Stuntz, 2011).
Contrast between the Legal Representation Described by Bright to the Level of Representation Available to White-collar, Corporate, and Environmental Crimes
…show more content…
Poor people are in some sort of manner processed through the system and not represented. Some of their cases are determined even in 30 seconds (Neubauer, Fradella, 2015).
Role of War on Drugs on an Overburdened Public Defense
“War on drugs” is driven by a stereotypical approach against African Americans and Hispanics a majority of whom are dependent on the public defense due to poverty. This has stretched on the available public defenders (Chin,

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The legal system of the United States has been overwhelmed by underfunding and excessive caseloads, which has placed a substantial burden on public defenders. Unfortunately, public defenders are the hardest working attorneys and sector of the legal system because they are severely understaffed. Therefore, they are represented by public defenders, which is a granted constitutional right in the case of Gideon v. Wainwright. This case specified that states are required to provide defense attorneys to defendants convicted of a felony or serious crime that cannot provide attorney representation for themselves. According to Brunt (2015), “approximately 80% of the offenders that are charged with a felony are indigent.” This is a relatively large number…

    • 584 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    While working for the American Civil Liberties Union, Michelle Alexander’s perspective changed as she gained insight on the racial bias in our criminal justice system and how it has been altered throughout time. In The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindless, Alexander compares our current justice system to the Jim Crow laws of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which enforced racial segregation, by calling our system “The New Jim Crow.” Alexander describes America’s racial history in depth by covering slavery, the Civil War, reconstruction, and the Civil Rights Movement. The author also explains that The War on Drugs in the 1980s was not based on correct statistics about drug use, but rather to satisfy white…

    • 155 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    US criminal justice system is using the Drug War to cover the mature “Jim Crow”. Alexander…

    • 512 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Statistics show that African Americans commit only fifteen percent of drug offenses, yet they comprise up to 90% of incarcerations for drug offenses in communities throughout the country. Besides that, although the majority of illegal drug users and dealers are white, three-fourths of all people incarcerated for drug offenses have either been black or Latino. There is clearly something wrong with this picture. The big question is: why is it mostly the minority that is suffering? Looking at it in a Marxists point of view, the answer is pretty simple. It is easier for the officers of the law to exploit those of no authority, e.g. poor blacks, than those who can easily buy their way out, e.g. affluent whites. Although the majority of illegal drug users and dealers are white, three-fourths of all people incarcerated for drug offenses have either been black or Latino. “African Americans––particularly in the poorest neighborhoods––are subject to tactics and practices that would result in public outrage and scandal if committed in middle-class white neighborhoods.”(Alexander 96) What Alexander is trying to convey is that poor African Americans who receive this kind of treatment have no choice but to accept it since they have no resources to take legal action. As one former prosecutor voiced out, “It’s a lot easier to go out to the ‘hood, so to speak, and pick somebody than to put your resources in an undercover [operation in a] community where…

    • 733 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The phrase “sex, drugs, and rock and roll” held true to its well-earned spot in 1970’s and 1980’s society. With a new, looser culture, explicit music, raunchy and rambunctious movies as well as a societal focus on many things immoral, it was an era of challenging social norms. As the use of recreational and psychoactive drugs, as well as alcohol, increased, a new problem arose; how does law enforcement and the government undo the damage being made by this new society? Laws were passed, bureaus and commissions were formed, and the President of the United States began what he called “The War on Drugs”. Over the years, some of these solutions have proven to make some impact. The initiation, tactics, and attempts at dealing a major blow to drug abuse have all affected the way America sees drugs today. A new type of warfare had made its way into the country, and after all these years, it has made its fair share of positive and negative effects.…

    • 1554 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    prosecuted unjustly or even falsely tried. Defense attorneys are not well trained for the all…

    • 275 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Drug War Shading

    • 70 Words
    • 1 Page

    The drug war has delivered significantly unequal outcomes crosswise over racial gatherings, showed through racial segregation by law authorization and lopsided drug war wretchedness endured by groups of shading. In spite, of the fact, that rates of drug utilize and offering are practically identical crosswise over racial lines, non-white individuals are much more inclined to be halted, looked, captured, indicted, sentenced and detained for drug law infringement than are…

    • 70 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Human Rights Watch. (2000, May). United States Punishment and Prejudice: Racial Disparities in the War on Drugs (Vol.12, No.2 (G)). New York: Human Rights Watch. Retrieved April 12, 2005, from Human Rights Watch Web site: http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/usa/Rcedrg00-01.htm…

    • 2426 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    According to Harris (2002) the standard explanations for racial profiling focus on institutional racism, but that idea runs contrary to the sea change in social attitudes that has taken place over the last four decades. On the contrary, the practice of racial profiling grows from a trio of very tangible sources, all attributable to the War on Drugs, that $37 billion annual effort on the part of local, state, and federal lawmakers and cops to stop the sale and use of "illicit" substances. The sources include the difficulty in policing victimless crimes in general and the resulting need for intrusive police techniques; the greater relevancy of this difficulty given the intensification of the drug war since the 1980s; and the additional incentive that asset forfeiture laws give police forces to seize money and property from suspects. Since the notion of scaling back, let alone stopping, the drug war is too controversial for most politicians to handle, it's hardly surprising that its role in racial profiling should go largely unacknowledged.…

    • 1452 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout history, Mass Incarceration has heavily affected groups of African- Americans living in the United States. The War on Drugs launched the increase of the imprisonment of young black males across the country. Although, The War on drugs began over 30 years ago, it is a battle that we Americans continue to fight today. It is a battle, we have not yet conquered. With the launch of Ronald Reagan’s War on Drugs, thousands of people have been incarcerated for crimes that are not violent, but drug- related. Every year, the United States spends an excessive amount of money to lock up criminals, and often convict people who can benefit from rehabilitation and counseling as opposed to a three year sentence. It is a substantial issue in…

    • 334 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    Cited: Chin, Gabriel J. “Race, the War on Drugs, and the Collateral Consequences of Criminal Conviction.” Journal of Gender, Race & Justice, Vol. 6, p. 253, 2002. University of Arizona. Web. 1 May 2010.…

    • 1969 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    The New Jim Crow

    • 1050 Words
    • 5 Pages

    In today’s modern world, many people would be surprised to find out that there is still a racial caste system in America. After witnessing the election of a black president, people have started believing that America has entered a post-racial society. This is both a patently false and dangerous mindset. The segregation and stigma of race is still very much alive in our society. Instead of a formalized institution such as slavery or Jim Crow, America has found a new way to continue the marginalization of blacks by using the criminal justice system. In Michelle Alexander’s book “ The New Jim Crow”, she shows how America’s “ War on Drugs “ has become a tool of racial segregation and how the discretionary enforcement of drug laws has resulted in an overwhelmingly negative affect on its black population.…

    • 1050 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    If we become serious about dismantling the system of mass incarceration, we must end the War on Drugs. The drug war is responsible for the prison boom and the creation of the new under caste, and there is no path to freedom for communities of color that includes this conflict.…

    • 1329 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    War on Drugs

    • 2405 Words
    • 10 Pages

    Small D. The War on Drugs Is a War on Racial Justice. Social Research [serial online]. Fall2001 2001;68(3):896-903. Available from: Academic Search Complete, Ipswich, MA. Accessed March 6, 2013.…

    • 2405 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    The New Jim Crow

    • 1686 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Incarceration rates in the United States have exploded due to the convictions for drug offenses. Today there are half a million in prison or jail due to a drug offense, while in 1980 there were only 41,100. They have tripled since 1980. The war on drugs has contributed the most to the systematic mass incarceration of people of color, most of them African-Americans. The drug war is aimed to catch the big-time dealers, but the majority of the people arrested are not charged with serious offenses, and most of the people who are in prison today for drug arrests, have no history of violence or selling activity. The war on drugs is also aimed to catch dangerous drugs, however nearly 80 percent of the drug arrests in the 90s where for marijuana possession. The Drug War has undermined all constitutionally protected civil liberties. The court has, in recent years, permitted police to obtain search warrants based on anonymous informant 's tips. They have also allowed helicopters to surveillance homes without a warrant, and the forfeiture of cash and homes based on unproven allegations of illegal drug activity. The Supreme Court have crafted legal rules that allow law enforcement to arrest virtually anyone. In 1968, the Supreme Court modified the understanding, that if an officer believes that someone is dangerous or engaging in criminal activity, that he should conduct a limited search to find weapons that might be used against him. Police now have basically the right to stop and search just about anybody that is walking down the street for drugs, and because common sense indicates that hardly anyone nowadays will say no when police asks to search. Police officers also use pretext stops as an excuse to search for drugs. It allowed police to use minor traffic violations as a pretext for baseless drug investigations and single anyone for investigation without any evidence of illegal drug activity. The truth, however, is that…

    • 1686 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays