Santa Clara County (which is Silicon Valley) for thinking that they do not have to provide public defenders for criminal misdemeanor defendants. They are wrong. Here is why:
Prisoners from the jail are brought into court in chains. One of the prisoners is a nice man, with a small contracting business, taking care of his small children because their mother is a drug addict. He got arrested because the mother and her boyfriend came to his house, stoned out of their minds, trying to get him to give them money. He cannot invite them into his small apartment to prevent the neighbors from hearing the shouting because the kids are asleep in the living room. So he gets arrested because the woman had taken out a restraining order against him. The judge says to him. "If you want an attorney, you are going to have to wait 10 days, but if you plead guilty now, I will let you go home for time served. You will be home tonight." So he pleads guilty.
Six months later, he gets a letter telling him that he is going to lose his contractor license because he committed a crime of moral turpitude. It takes all his money to feed and cloth his kids. He can't afford a lawyer. So he and his children end up on the streets.
We cannot do anything about this right now. We have to hold everything stable to give the experts space while they are fixing the financial crises. Don't worry, we will fix this problem afterwards and the fix should leave the victims with plenty of money. (Actually, I am hoping that an attorney who has time and expertise will sue the county for monetary damages because they violated civil rights under color of authority.)
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