Legal Aid Thoughts

shaunsweb

How many people, read day in day out in the papers about individuals receiving free legal aid when they are charged with an offence. I have no problem with someone receiving free legal aid (one time only) but when you have people with 20, 30+ previous convictions, then it is beginning to sound like a joke.

Surely, if they want to repeat offend, then let them stand up and speak for themselves in a court or law or (perhaps a better idea), would be to get them to pay for their own legal advice (which I know would never happen). How much money do you reckon would be saved?

Now before everyone starts speaking about civil rights and democracy, my comment would be simple. What about the civil rights of those they injure or of the taxpayers who have to pay out so that they can get released and do the same thing again. Who speaks for them?

I'd like to hear your thoughts on this

thanks for reading

coylemj

I see your point but the problem is that implementing a discriminatory system would immediately identify people with previous convictions to the judge and in serious cases the jury.

For example, two guys (A & rob a bank and get caught red-handed by the cops. A has a string of previous convictions, B is on his first job or he has been lucky up to now. The two of them are charged and go in front of a judge and jury, A has no legal representation because he can't afford it and by your logic he gets no free legal aid, B who is in the same economic boat (no job, on the dole) has a junior and senior defending him on legal aid. You might as well hand the jury a list of A's previous convictions, letting him stand trial with no legal representation would be the same thing.

shaunsweb

And would that be a bad thing? I think the key here is to get those individuals who just want to stay in trouble off the streets. I would sooner have them locked up behind bars instead of robbing\beating up\murdering someone

MagicSean

I saw a good one in court a few weeks ago. Person requested legal aid and claimed they were on welfare. Garda was on the ball though and knew that he had received something like €250k in a settlement the year before for injuries sustained in a traffic accident.

Personally I think that all drugs offences should not be eligible for legal aid. Also, offences in which alcohol is a factor should be excluded for the most part. I've seen judges refuse to grant it to people who posess an expensive vehicle too. Being on social welfare should not be grounds either. Why cant €10 a week be deducted at source from their welfare to repay the legal fees? If someone lies under oath then there legal aid should be retracted too. Maybe not too practicle but the system is being fleeced at the moment. Just a few ideas.

johnnyskeleton

Legal aid costs about €50m per year. A report in the papers last year suggests that this is relatively low compared to other countries.

One of the main reasons for legal aid is that it decreases the strain on the system. Solicitors advise their clients and so hundreds of cases can be dealt with by one judge in one day. Without that, a judge would have to explain sometimes fairly complex legal issues to someone who might not be capable of understanding and so the number of cases that could be dealt with in a day is reduced. Of course, the more cynical would say that in the absence of lawyers everyone would just be convicted by the judge and procedure would be glossed over. However, if you want to have a semblence of fairness in the trial lawyers are indispensible.

Also, without lawyers in the District and Circuit Court all sorts of things could go wrong which would be amenable to Judicial Review, which actually costs a lot more than legal aid does.

The cost of legal aid is probably justified compared to the cost of JRs, extra judges, extra admin and wasted garda time that would arise if they were not there to ensure efficiency and fairness.

Plus, it's a constitutional right.

By all means though they could reduce the legal aid fees (again) and make it harder to qualify for it. While lawyers will complain about the reduced fees, so long as someone is prepared to act in a legal aid case then the fees are not too low (unfortunately).

k_mac wrote: »

Personally I think that all drugs offences should not be eligible for legal aid. Also, offences in which alcohol is a factor should be excluded for the most part.

How does that work? Will solicitors act in a case and if it is proven that it is a drugs offence then they get nothing for their work, and only get paid if they get someone off? Fine, except that solicitors wont act for anyone unless they plead not guilty and the system probably wouldn't be able to cope.

shaunsweb

Hi Johnny, Thanks for the feedback on this. I didn't realise that legal aid was 50million euro last year. (that's a hell of a lot of people on trial)!

I do acknowlege that it is a constitutional right. I'm wondering though why in case of repeat offenders, it is still seen as a constitutional right. Surely their victims would be screaming about their constitutional rights also and to be honest; nothing turns my stomach more than to see some little scumbag being carted off who has no remorse for his/her actions knowing that they will have a little bit of time to do (or worse, receive a slap on the wrist) and then be free to do it again. Which alas some do.

I'm not sure if you saw a primetime investigates program (oh about 6 months ago), where they followed some shop lifters around Dublin. Their attitude was, it's the shops fault for not having security. Yet traders are reporting millions of euros worth of items stolen. If severe enough penalties are handed down or if they know they wouldn't be getting a solicitor paid for them the next time, it might act as a incentive not to do it again

Reloc8

Its a question of priorities and choices.

If you want to have the confidence that any person who gets convicted and/or jailed was given a fair hearing/trial then you pay the legal aid bill.

If you don't care about that, and accept that this means that the wealthy will have access to representation which others will not, then you don't (pay the legal aid bill).

Is it the case that some people get free legal aid to which they are not entitled to, having regard to their means ? Yes - it is impossible for the prosecuting authorities to have full insight into everyone's affairs. In this free legal aid is no different to any support of a financial nature offered by the State.

shaunsweb

Hi Reloc; Thanks for your views on this: I'm sure we are all agreed that people should receive legal aid (it should be open to everyone regardless of their background) for one time only.

After that, everyone is on their own. Most will only offend once but there are a number who appear time again in the judical system.

It's not about whether you can afford a solicitor or not. It's about where the line should be drawn with repeat offenders who appear to act with don't care attitude. We have all seen and heard of cases where individuals have 20-30 or more previous convictions. And they just don't care and have no desire to rehabilitate their attitude. I know where some of that 50 million euro could be better spent (and it isn't on helping repeat offenders exercise their constitutional right when they have denied victims theirs)

Thoughts please

Reloc8

Hi Shaun.

I don't disagree with the practical aspects of what you say (i.e. that there are very many repeat offenders who get legal aid assigned on each instance of being charged - btw 20 or 30 district court convictions would perhaps not even count amongst the worst of the repeat offenders). For what it is worth, I have also seen very many people who are clearly able to afford a solicitor apply for and be granted free legal aid (or allow their child to do so) - I suppose its one of those situations where everyone has a certain position until its themselves in the firing line - I'm not at all suggesting you are such a person.

Anyway, I suppose you have to however consider that some of what you're saying infers a presumption of guilt or at least prejudices a person who is supposed to be presumed innocent at a point prior to them being found guilty - i.e. you've had legal aid for lots of cases, and now you don't get any more because you have convictions.

Then from a practical point of view, I'm not a gullible/blind/pinko liberal myself, but I can see the potential for abuse here as regards a person who is not liked, so to speak, by the authorities, and has been ruled or whatever to be a person who won't get legal aid.

Returning to the principled point of view, I suppose one could beg the question as to whether unemployment benefits should be available after a certain period of time unemployed (huge debate in its own right) or whether people who don't live healthy lifestyles should be afforded the beneft of a medical card (another huge debate - recent instance regarding a liver transplant comes to mind as being also relevant). Those are probably not invalid analogies.

Ultimately, the cost of the criminal justice system will always be a contentious issue, especially where a certain identifiable portion of that cost is perceived to be spent to the benefit of an accused person who is persistently offending. I suppose you could (must ?) look on it as a system cost in dealing with that offender, in like manner and style as regards the cost of detecting and prosecuting them, and having the appropriate sanction placed upon them.

If the issue is however whether sentences imposed on repeat offenders are too light, i.e. they should be taken out of circulation for longer periods of time, then the way to address that is not by cutting legal aid. And perceived lightness of sentence is another huge issue.

I say that because to cut legal aid you would have to presume that sentences would not be affected by cutting legal aid. If you thought that sentences would be affected (presumably by going in an upwards direction) then you'd have to accept that somebody is going to prison or going to prison for longer because they were inadequately represented.

If they should be locked up, its up to a judge to do that based on what's in front of them - and I accept that sentencing should incorporate a punitive and deterrent aspect. The proper way to go about that is not to deny adequate representation however because if you did deny adequate representation there would have to be serious questions asked about whether the prison sentence or other sanction imposed was done so properly.

johnnyskeleton

shaunsweb wrote: »

Hi Johnny, Thanks for the feedback on this. I didn't realise that legal aid was 50million euro last year. (that's a hell of a lot of people on trial)!

There were 524,390 criminal cases disposed of in 2009. Most of these would be district court matters and a lot would be road traffic and public order which might not get legal aid. But still, there were nearly 70k indictable offences tried summarily (maybe 90% of which would get legal aid), nearly 3k circuit court cases, and over 100 in the central and special criminal courts. There are also a whopping 450k summary only offences. If a quarter of these got legal aid (the rest being mostly minor road traffic/minor public order/struck out etc), that's still in the region of 100k cases.

I couldn't say how many of these actually got legal aid, but still, it's a lot of cases and to say that there were 100k cases where legal aid was granted. I also don't know if the figures released also include case stated applications, payments under the Attorney General's scheme and other types of ad-hoc criminal legal aid.

Overall, for the number of cases that are dealt with, legal aid represents pretty good value compared to other countries.

shaunsweb wrote: »

I do acknowlege that it is a constitutional right. I'm wondering though why in case of repeat offenders, it is still seen as a constitutional right.

Well even if you have 100 convictions you are still presumed innocent until proven otherwise, and if this was not so then the Gardai would be able to get rid of unsolved cases by simply pinning them on any random punter who has previous convictions.

Also, again, the amount of cases that come before the courts would not be workable (or at least not workable in a fair and orderly manner) if it wasn't for solicitors.

shaunsweb wrote: »

Surely their victims would be screaming about their constitutional rights also and to be honest; nothing turns my stomach more than to see some little scumbag being carted off who has no remorse for his/her actions knowing that they will have a little bit of time to do (or worse, receive a slap on the wrist) and then be free to do it again. Which alas some do.

What would you propose as an alternative? Even if we didn't have legal aid, that wouldn't increase the number of prison spaces, and our prisons are currently full to the brim. On the contrary, it might mean that people who really don't deserve to go to prison are sent there because they were not legally advised, leaving fewer places for those who do deserve to be there.

IMO someone who commits a serious sexual or violent crime is much more suitable to go to jail than someone who has committed 100 public order or minor shoplifting/drugs offences.

shaunsweb wrote: »

I'm not sure if you saw a primetime investigates program (oh about 6 months ago), where they followed some shop lifters around Dublin. Their attitude was, it's the shops fault for not having security. Yet traders are reporting millions of euros worth of items stolen. If severe enough penalties are handed down or if they know they wouldn't be getting a solicitor paid for them the next time, it might act as a incentive not to do it again

Not really. The greatest deterrent is that of being caught. Clearly those people don't feel that they will be caught. And if they are caught, they are usually caught red handed. Not much a solicitor can do for them other than make sure that they are processed fairly by the court. This will, from time to time, involve issues of mistaken identity and so forth and it is in the interests of justice that judges aren't too quick to convict in such cases.

johnnyskeleton

shaunsweb wrote: »

After that, everyone is on their own. Most will only offend once but there are a number who appear time again in the judical system.

It's not about whether you can afford a solicitor or not. It's about where the line should be drawn with repeat offenders who appear to act with don't care attitude. We have all seen and heard of cases where individuals have 20-30 or more previous convictions. And they just don't care and have no desire to rehabilitate their attitude. I know where some of that 50 million euro could be better spent (and it isn't on helping repeat offenders exercise their constitutional right when they have denied victims theirs)

Thoughts please

Ironically enough, you are more likely to get district court legal aid for a second offence than a first. The reason being that you are often unlikely to be at risk of imprisonment on a first offence in respect of a number of offences (e.g. public order, road traffick), but if you have previous then imprisonment is a realistic possibility thus engaging the right to legal aid.

shaunsweb

Hi Johnny, Thanks for you viewpoint on my question. It's good to hear from you. And the stats you provided are sadly shocking that so many cases are brought before the courts in this country

In the responses I have, though, I have noticed that there is a presumption that the Guards or perhaps even the judiciary may abuse the system (ie blaming someone or inferring guilt if someone has not got a solicitor because they are denied legal aid).

How about this: Instead of giving repeat petty criminals legal aid and instead of tying up the court system in listening to their cases; that a mechanism is put in place whereby petty offenses are disposed of by means of automatic enrolment and mandatory attendance in a community service project (for a determined length of time). This would surely free up the spaces whilst at the same time adding some value back to the community. If someone doesn't appear on a scheme, then it's simple, they go to serve a prison term for a specific period of time.

johnnyskeleton

shaunsweb wrote: »

Hi Johnny, Thanks for you viewpoint on my question. It's good to hear from you. And the stats you provided are sadly shocking that so many cases are brought before the courts in this country

In the responses I have, though, I have noticed that there is a presumption that the Guards or perhaps even the judiciary may abuse the system (ie blaming someone or inferring guilt if someone has not got a solicitor because they are denied legal aid).

How about this: Instead of giving repeat petty criminals legal aid and instead of tying up the court system in listening to their cases; that a mechanism is put in place whereby petty offenses are disposed of by means of automatic enrolment and mandatory attendance in a community service project (for a determined length of time). This would surely free up the spaces whilst at the same time adding some value back to the community. If someone doesn't appear on a scheme, then it's simple, they go to serve a prison term for a specific period of time.

They would still have to have a trial. Also, community service is available at present, but it does cost a lot of money to administer, so fines would be preferable for the pettiest of offences.