Word: misdemeanor
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...traced to lax courts and a poor police force, and they seem to have a point. Says Tonkin: "There are 60 to 100 real troublemakers; they're mostly on St. Croix, and we know who they are." Yet virtually nothing is done about them. Of 933 misdemeanor cases brought to trial on St. Croix last year, only 33 resulted in jail sentences. All five of the black youths charged with the massacre at Laurance and David Rockefeller's Fountain Valley Golf Course had had previous arrests and convictions and were either out on skipped bail, light bail...
...persuading defendants to plead guilty to reduced charges. The L.A.A., by contrast, has provided 30 defenders, "mostly young idealists," who fight hard and have taken nine cases all the way to the Supreme Court. L.A.A. lawyers have done their share of plea bargaining, but only 1% of L.A.A. misdemeanor defendants during the last quarter of 1970 went to jail, as opposed to 8.3% of the public defenders' clients. Hersey also cites the fact that in 1970 the L.A.A. spent an average of $107 per criminal case, while the public defenders spent less than...
After that, lawyers trundling from session to session heard a dismal litany of problems ranging from continuing prejudice against women and blacks to the new right of indigents to get free counsel for misdemeanor charges. The most widespread gloom at the meeting came from the constantly discussed threat of no-fault automobile-liability insurance (and the end of the billion-dollar collision litigation business). The A.B.A.'s House of Delegates staunchly reiterated its opposition to the basic idea but hopefully proposed a compromise: mandatory automobile liability insurance, which would pay up to $2,000 to each individual covered, regardless...
These proposals ignored the reality -that relatively few lawyers go into private criminal practice, and that the modest fees paid for the defense of indigents are not likely to attract many newcomers. States like New York, one of 19 that already provide lawyers for most misdemeanor defendants, have had to expand their public defender services. One approach that may now spread is the practice of the Washington, D.C., bar, which last year adopted a rule calling on every member under 60 and not a Government employee to take his turn representing indigent defendants. The lawyers get hourly fees...
...Douglas also observed in a footnote that the floods of misdemeanor cases might be reduced considerably if, as many experts have recommended, officials stopped prosecuting perpetrators of so-called victimless crimes such as drunkenness, narcotics addiction and vagrancy...