September 25, 2006

• Lawyer at the Deli, Part II

  I got email regarding my last post about the Public Defender (PD) who works in the deli at Publix on weekends to earn money to repay law school student loans.  I was quite surprised by the girl’s need to do that.  The email came from a lawyer who works in a private law firm.  His wife is a PD, and he said he’s not at all surprised the Publix PD has to moonlight.  He said he makes three times what his wife earns, and he pointed out that PD’s work with some of the least desirable people in society: indigent criminals.  He said that both PD’s and State Attorneys (SA) are grossly underpaid.

  
  

  SA’s perform the essential function of protecting society by prosecuting criminals, and PD’s perform the essential function of protecting individual rights from government tyranny.  Quite literally, PD’s and SA’s help keep us a free people in ways that almost no one else equals.  In my opinion, only teachers do the equivalent in preserving our way of life, and the grotesque irony is that these three groups of public servants are the worst paid intellectual workers in the country.

  
  

  Because the pay is so poor, PD and SA offices often attract young attorneys with little experience and underdeveloped skills.  I once served on a jury for a case in which the SA, who was a very young Black man, was so inarticulate and unprepared that I was embarrassed for him.  The private defense counsel in the case was a slick, middle-aged white man who had years of experience in court and who was once a prominent member of the Florida legislature.  The jury found the defendant not guilty, but it made me wonder if the case against the defendant was as weak as it seemed or if the case was just handled poorly by the SA.  In other words, it made me wonder if justice had really been served.  Even though I have no personal experience to back this up, I’d be willing to bet that a good many innocent indigent people accused of crimes are found guilty because the PD in the case just couldn’t do the job.

  
  

  Politicians who are running for office frequently promise to raise teachers’ salaries, but I’ve never heard a politician promise to raise the salaries of PD’s and SA’s.  Of course, once they’re elected politicians forget about the teachers, but at least they pay them lip service.  PD’s and SA’s don’t even get that.

  
  

  To make the irony about PD’s even more striking, the Supreme Court case that brought about the massive creation of PD services all over the country was Gideon versus Wainwright (1963).  The crime Gideon was convicted of took place right here in good old Panama City.  The lawyer who successfully defended Gideon was Fred Turner, who later became a judge here.  Henry Fonda played the role of Gideon in the movie about the case called Gideon’s Trumpet.

  
  

  ED

  • 5:35 pm
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