If you think budget cuts at your job suck
(New Times is a considering a writing-by-candlelight,
tent-office setup) try being a Miami-Dade public defender. Thanks to shrinking
state court funds - down in 44 million
in the past two years - these burnt-out servants
of the poor, tired, huddled masses are crunching about 500 cases each at any
given moment. (Four times as many as Broward PDs.)
past eight months, crime is going up as lawyers are dropping out. So it doesn't
go over well when the opposition starts offering a few friendly penny-pinching
pointers for the new year.
State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle scoffed at what Miami-Dade Public
Defender Bennett Brummer characterized as "a crisis" that had "reached its
breaking point." Rundle's suggestion:
Stop spending so much time defending misdemeanor cases. She
added, "We've all had to deal with budget cuts."
on frugality for the prosecutor herself: Quit asking for jail on silly marijuana
charges and petty theft. Says courthouse blogger and justice system watchdog
Rumpole: "The reality is that outside of
repeat DUI convictions, there are almost no misdemeanor cases that result in
jail. However, the SAO strings everyone along,
kowtowing to cops or complaining witnesses on ridiculous cases."
Indeed, for all
the heinous and weird crime Miami-Dade endures, 50 percent the cases public
defenders handle are misdemeanors. The small-time stuff ends up weighing on
the already time-strapped pack of litigators. Adds Brummer: "I expect it to get
much worse very rapidly." Riptide
would offer a joint to ease the stress, but we hear county jail blows, and bail
bonds totally aren't in our budget this year.
