Untermenschen

I'm sure many criminal law people have seen the rant on Craigslist, Some Advice From Your Public Defender. I work in a Public Defender's office and shared it with some of my co-workers who greatly enjoyed it. However, I'm curious about reactions to it from outside the legal profession. I think only people who have worked in indigent defense could appreciate how it was both outrageously funny and sadly true. Crusading district attorneys and flashy private defense lawyers get the headlines, so an occasional outburst like this reminds people how public defenders serve them.

A quick Google search turned up this this forum post linking to the rant.

HAHHAHHA! Good stuff. The people public defenders have to represent are the absolute lowest of the low...sub-human garbage. I don't know how they do it.

I personally wonder if Bryan read the rant all the way to the end. The clients of public defenders are people. Because of circumstances, sometimes of their own making and sometimes not, they are unable to afford private counsel. Thus, the court appoints the public defender to represent them. The public defender is not assigned because the crime is so much more heinous or because the accused is so less worthy of good representation. They are poor. That is the only difference between them and me, or between them and you. To classify the poor as "sub-human" makes me think of the untouchables in India or Burakumin in Japan. A public defender's client is fully human.

Some people say they couldn't be a public defender because it's too crushing in spirit. Why not? I think they fight the good fight. They lose more often than they win, but they have done what they can. I often think of a public defender as the little boy plugging the hole in the bursting dike with his finger. He can't fix the hole, but he can buy time for help to arrive. He tries to help his fellow man. Why is that too much to ask of some people?

I apologize for adopting an exclusively male terminology in the last paragraph.

Every public defender probably shares the sentiments of the last line of the rant.

For the idiots who ask me how I sleep at night: I sleep just fine, thank you. There's nothing wrong with any of my clients that could not have been fixed with money or the presence of at least one caring adult in their lives. But that window has closed, and that loss diminishes us all.