> I have a good friend who moved from working in the public defenders office
(as a PD) to working in the DA's office (as an ASA). She felt she could do
more good there. She held to the belief that hundreds of innocent people
were being prosecuted and not getting proper defense council so she went to
work as a PD. After three years she realized that an innocent person being
prosecuted is rare.
Took her three years -- a real idealist! Most of my (left and liberal) friends in LS learned in in a summer interning with the PD or doing crimianl defense work. I have encountered --maybe -- three probably actually innocent defendants in my own work as a judicial law clerk and a lawyer.
> Most persons prosecuted for a crime were guilty of many
more that they were not charged for.
Generally the cops and the ASA are too busy to go after innocent. Of course here in Illinois we do have a tendency to put actually innocent people on death row, so when we goof, it's a doozy. Luckily the S. Ct has held that actual innocence without a constitutional violation is no obstacle to an execution. (Herrera v. Collins, one of the most evil opinions I have ever read).
> She moved to the DA's office and
although she does plea bargains she believes that she generally gets a
better deal for people from this side of the argument than she did from the
defense side. I am not in a position to judge so I will defer to her
judgement unless I find out otherwise later.
She's probably right. And I do criminal defense work.
> It seems that if you are a
prosecutor trying to screw people this is a pretty powerful position from
which to do it very effectively. These seem to be the people most often
rewarded in the DA's office.
Well, convictions are rewarded. But not screwing people per se.
> The flip side seems to be that as a prosecutor
if you are genuinely trying to help people in trying circumstances this
also a pretty powerful position from which to do some good.
Yes, but this is individual, the problem is systematic.
> She handles way
too many cases to give everyone a really fair shake however, a problem she
readily concedes but has no practical solution for. Prosecutors it would
seem are also given pretty skimpy resources in order to bring about the
same effect as skimping on funds for the PD's office. Process poor people
quickly through the system before anyone really has a chance to find out
much about the case.
Yup.
> Salary for an entry level position as an ASA in Cook County Illinois is
$43,XXX. My friend makes about that, (after a few years on the job) but she
isn't in Illinois. She also said the entry level pay was identical for
either position where she lives, something that did surprise me.
Better than I thought. Still, that's a public interest salary -- I could have had a job at the ACLU for that a few years ago.
Why does it surprise you that PDs are paid the same as ASAs?
jks
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