Public Public Defenders Need a Nap and a Joint (Not Necessarily in That Order)

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.)With a 16 percent caseload increase in the

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.In a Christmas day Miami Herald article,

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.”Affronted attorneys then came up a little lesson

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.

–Natalie O’Neill