Defendants on the lower end of the socio-economic scale find themselves at the mercy of public defenders who are swamped with cases, understaffed, and underfunded. Research shows that even before mass incarceration accelerated in the 1980s, overburdened systems of indigent defense struggled to meet the 6th Amendment constitutional mandate. Public defenders usually have the deck stacked against them due to discovery laws favoring prosecutors and lack of sufficient resources.
“By arresting people for marijuana if they have a record, by arresting people for marijuana if they happen to be on parole—those people, more often than not, are going to be people of color who only live in certain neighborhoods. Because those are the people who are targeted. Those are the people who are arrested, not because they commit more crime but because they are overpoliced.“
The Appeal
September 17, 2018
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