IF the PD’s office sees part of their job as assisting the criminal defense bar in general, their ability to create a massive filing cabinet (tons of pre-trial motions, etc.) and to make that available will be a real asset. Most defense lawyers are solo practitioners, while the DA’s office has thousands and thousands of documents they can rely on. We can ALL do a better job, with the resources of a PDs office available to support us.

Now, if the County establishes a crappy PDs office, then of course it will not be an asset. The issue, to me, is not whether to support a PDs office, but whether to support the PDs office the County is willing to establish. And until we see the dimensions of that office, I’ll have to remain optimistic, but neutral.

In my own brief tenure in the law, I’ve learned a tremendous amount from my court-appointed clients, and that allowed me to better represent court-appointed and retained clients who came after them. I never treated court-appointed clients any differently than retained clients either, both because of my ethics and because of my desire not to let down the judges who authorized the appointment of these clients to me.

Institutionalism is really the only way to overcome the pitiful attitude the Harris County public has regarding crime and the criminal justice system. If you want the public to be a staunch supporter of a defendant’s constitutional rights–as opposed to, say, viewing them as mere “technicalities” that prevent true “justice”–then you need a strong institution pushing those values. If the only institutionalized view is the prosecution’s, public attitudes won’t change.

Jigmeister, agreed to your last comment.