Legal Information – Pilant's Business Ethics Blog

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Commentary: Right to counsel? It’s stacked against the poor | McClatchy

It turns out there is a gulf between the 1963 promise and the 2013 reality. It turns out one lawyer can be expected to try 400, 500, 600 cases a year. It turns out public defenders are so underfunded and overwhelmed it is not uncommon for a defendant to meet his attorney for the first time in court. It turns out the situation is so dire that in at least one jurisdiction a judge pressed tax attorneys and property lawyers into service in criminal court. It turns out poor people’s justice is to justice as monkey business is to business.

Ask Clarence Jones, who spent over a year in prison just waiting for an attorney — and was still there as the book went to press — on a charge of burglary.

Ask Carol Dee Huneke, a novice lawyer with no experience in criminal law who was hired as a public defender on a Thursday and assigned a case that began Monday. She had never even seen a trial before.

And ask Greg Bright, who spent 27 years in prison on a murder charge he might have easily beaten, writes Houppert, had his court-appointed attorney done even minimal investigation on his behalf. As a later attorney discovered, the single witness the state’s case hinged upon was a mentally-ill heroin addict with a history of hallucinations who physically could not have seen what she claimed she did.

Twenty-seven years. “Make me wanna holler,” indeed.

What is reflected here is not simply incompetence but disdain, contempt for the rights, lives and humanity of the less fortunate. And perhaps your instinct is to look away, secure in the naïve delusion that no one gets arrested unless they’ve “done something.” Truth is, it happens every day.

Commentary: Right to counsel? It’s stacked against the poor | McClatchy

Below is short segment from a web site in United Kingdom. It is explaining in layman’s terms how the law on unfair dismissal works. Don’t expect to see any of this apply in any way in the United States.We have the doctrine of Employment at Will.

UNFAIR DISMISSAL COMPENSATION

You may be eligible for unfair dismissal compensation if you have been fired illegally. If you believe that your employer has no reason to fire you because of your job performance, it is a good idea to get a lawyer to protect your rights. Sometimes, the employer does not follow the proper procedure of firing, and due to some reason that have nothing to do with you, you are fired without given a due notice. In case you want a leave and get fired, the ground of firings may not be legal. If you live far and get late to work and have been asking to change your timings and get fired instead of getting flexible timing, you may be eligible for compensation.

Codes of conduct of employers are part of written law and anyone can challenge acts of employers if they feel they have been treated unfairly. Proper dismissal procedures are required to be followed, or else the dismissal might be considered unfair. When you do not get a proper notice of dismissal, or do not get paid the notice period, your employer has breached the employment contract. You will be eligible to get compensation in such a case. If some compensation has been paid but is not the right amount, you can still sue the employer over short paying you. You can make two claims, for unlawful dismissal and breach of contract as well. It is important for all fired employees to seek legal help, so they can get unfair dismissal compensation.

UNFAIR DISMISSAL COMPENSATION

I had already encountered in Australian law the idea that a worker cannot be fired for anything but cause or serious financial problems in the business. I have now discovered the same kind of laws in the United Kingdom. I will be doing more searching on this set of laws in the future. I do believe these kinds of laws strongly point to the injustice of the doctrine in the United States of “Employment at Will.”

James Pilant