Possibly where you live but not everywhere- where I live, if you are financially eligible for assigned counsel, the county pays for it. And the only way the person would have to pay is if a judge found either 1) that the financial circumstances had changed or 2) that the defendant deliberately misrepresented their financial situation.
This cite says you are correct. But it is getting better for rich people faster. Put another way, the IRS is shifting to auditing poor people rather than rich people.
With the reduction in IRS staff, all income groups have seen a decline in their audit rates, although the rich have enjoyed a sharper reduction than the poor. For instance, Americans with annual incomes of more than $10 million have enjoyed a 75% decline in audit rates since 2013, according to the most recent data from the IRS. The audit rate for taxpayers earning less than $25,000 has dipped about 30% during the same period.
This comes from my state Rules of the Court. I was surprised too. I have an apple, and I’ll take a screenprint and post it (if allowed), or I will quote you the paragraph. By the way, I don’t think defender’s do a good job at all. Most of the sit at home with nothing to do, and they don’t like to work.
Here’s something from the internet (1st paragraph, last line): Link
I’m not saying it’s not the case in your state - I have no idea how it works in your state. I’m saying it’s not the case in mine and therefore it’s not really accurate to say
Did you know that public defenders are not free? At the end of a trial, the state bills the client for his cost, so nearly everyone touched by this goes bankrupt.
without specifying which state you are talking about. Since what would really surprise me is if anything was true in all fifty states.
It also does not support the contention that “nearly everyone touched by this goes bankrupt.” That New Jersey cite above refers to “extremely low cost” for public defender services. Even where reimbursement is sought, I’d expect that it would be intended not to bankrupt the person.
Here’s the price list. I doubt anyone goes bankrupt with (f) in there.
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Exactly - finding that the lead police investigators made racist comments, as with OJ Simpson, probably involved a lot of PI’s digging through reams of data on every policeman involved in the case and every prosecutor, and reading pages and pages of boring reports and depositions, highlighting and cross-referencing for inconsistencies, etc. That no be cheap.
Not to be confused with a public defender reading your file a half hour before the hearing.
If a public defender was assigned to a high profile double homicide, they get the file more than a half hour before the hearing. But, of course, their resources are more limited than a millionaire’s team would be.
How often is (f) actually used? Seems it is up to the state to determine whether or not to settle or compromise on the fees. Are there actual guidelines to be followed or is it more of an ad hoc system?
I don’t know how often it’s used . But I will say that in my experience with indigent defense organizations * in another state they are very pro-client.
- those that are directly funded by by the county or the state rather than private attorneys who are assigned and get an hourly rate
Hi. You are right. On the following link, paragraph 19 say P.D.'s should have a reimbursement of costs. But par. 16 says it only applies to those with means, and even in my previous post, standard, flat fees apply to filing, defending, etc. (found in the last link). Oops!
I agree with this. When watching the People v. OJ Simpson tv special, I was thinking how wonderful it would be to have the sort of resources the Dream Team had. Not only experienced co-counsel to bounce ideas off of, but investigators to fly around the country digging up dirt on everyone, paralegals looking for obscure case law, and you basically acting as a general putting it all together.
For the regular appointed counsel, or even a middle class person paying, you simply cannot do all of that or anywhere near that.
Didn’t OJ break the bank on his defense? It worked but he was financially ruined at the end?
While I’m sure the cost of his defense was a squeeze, it was the subsequent civil judgment against him in the wrongful death lawsuit brought by Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpsons’ families that forced him to file bankruptcy. He’s only ever paid a fraction of the $58 million he owes.
I also found an article about how Simpson basically set up a merchandizing operation in prison to pay for his defense, signing and selling memorabilia whose price had been driven up by his notoriety. He made $3 million awaiting trial.
If he lost, he would have no use for the money.
OJ didn’t get bail?? I learned something new again today. Obviously I cared deeply enough to pay attention to the trial…
Out of curiosity - say we go by some figures that a middle-class to upper-class American might be able to afford:
What does a $100,000 legal defense budget (against a felony charge as serious as OJ’s murder) get you?
What does a $300,000 legal defense budget get you?
What does a $500,000, or a million-dollar defense (selling the house, everything) get you?
Does each additional hundred thousand dollars bump up your chances of being acquitted by something like 5%? (Yes, I know, that’s a horribly inaccurate way to think of it, but I can’t conceive of any other to couch it)
It is really fact dependent. If they got you, they got you, and no amount of money is (probably) going to change that. Other cases might turn on one or two facts, but a really effective advocate might be able to make the most of them. Other cases might need a full investigation of dozens of witnesses or 100,000 documents. That’s expensive. Expert witnesses are expensive too. In most cases, a $300,000 budget isn’t going to increase your chances over $100,000 defense. A $100,000 budget will increase your chances significantly over a $20,000 budget.
If your budget is truly unlimited, you can hire a variety of experts and focus group each one and see what works and doesn’t work. You can hire consultants to help you frame and present your arguments. You can get “real time” transcripts in court, and have a shadow jury give you feed back each night. Your team of investigators can chase down every lead and talk to every conceivable witness. But, as I said, none of this will make a difference if they prosecution has a really strong case.
Tangent: Most criminal cases are not as complicated as O.J.'s. In fact, OJ’s case shouldn’t have been that complicated either. I remember saying at the time, “if the prosecution can’t make it’s case in six weeks, it doesn’t have a case.” Most murder trials around here take 7 to 15 court days. One particularly long double homicide case took about 6 months, but was the result of a 10 year investigation in the US and Canada. Back to the original question: The defendants had some of the best criminal defense attorneys imaginable.
https://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Rafay-Burns-are-convicted-of-murder-1145787.php