Judges in Louisiana are appointing civil attorneys with no experience in criminal law, basically cardboard cutouts of lawyers, so they can say that the defendants were represented:
http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/ ... _than_free
These attorneys receive no funding for their cases, not even to interview witnesses, hire experts, and investigate crime scenes, so they cannot provide a full defense for their clients. Yet, the judges hope that by doing this they can sweep the problem under the rug.
In New Orleans, there was the case of Joseph Allen who was falsely accused of participating in a gang shootout. Fortunately for him, he was able to hire a competent attorney who had resources to spare in investigating the case. The attorney was able to confirm his alibi by getting surveillance footage of Allen when he was shopping with his wife in a Houston-area store at the time of the shootout, resulting in his release:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... cases-aclu
But it takes resources to get information like that; the attorney needs to be able to go out into the field and interview people, and for that they need resources. These civil attorneys being appointed have no such resources, so if an indigent defendant is falsely accused, the civil attorney may be unable to prove the defendant's innocence. And if the innocent defendant appeals mentioning the violation of their civil rights leading to their false conviction, the judges and other authorities hope the higher courts rule the defendant had their rights followed because after all they had representation, causing the defendant to serve out their sentence and have their rights impaired afterward for a crime they didn't commit.
Something's rotten in the State of Louisiana, and that place is turning into a powderkeg. I'd say we have the potential to see something far worse in Louisiana than we are seeing in Charlotte or even what we saw in Dallas, and I'm not sure that at least some of the authorities there would have at least partially deserved it.
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"You have a responsibility to consider all sides of a problem and a responsibility to make a judgment and a responsibility to care for all involved." --Ian Danskin
23 Sep 2016, 12:52 am
