I'm Really Glad They Made the Legal Aid Society

The New York Times' front page today tells the story of a Nepalese Buddhist detained by the government after he was picked up for inadvertently videotaping a builiding cointaining FBI offices. He proved to have overstayed his visa, but the bureau confirmed within a week that he wasn't a terrorist. Yet he spent three months in solitary confinement, during which he alleges being mistreated. This case came to light because an agent took the unusual step of contacting the Legal Aid Society on the man's behalf, but as the article observes, there's no way of knowing how many other similar cases there were, or how many other innocents remain in detention.

Comments

[SR]

Just keep telling yourself: If you're not a funny-looking non-English speaker, you have nothing to fear. (Also, in regards to his being here illegally, if you read the story you'll see that the FBI didn't learn that until *after* he had been arrested and interrogated for some period of time.)

[Julian Sanchez]

I don't recall hearing any libertarians (though I'm sure there must be one or two) take issue with public provision of counsel for indigent criminal defendants; seems to follow pretty uncontroversially from the public obligation to meet reasonable burdens of proof (including giving the accused fair opportunity to gather exculpatory evidence or detect legal missteps by the authorities) before punishing people. Have you actually run into any of these "just cheap" folks who call themselves libertarians?

[Jeff]

For a Buddhist I'm sure it was a very enlightening experience.

[kevrob]

If you don't hear libertarians carping about tax-funded defense counsel, it is probably because that particular government program is so low on the priority list of Things We Ought To Change that we can wait to deal with it until after we've made some progress on the top items. It would be better if low income people purchased legal services ahead of an arrest, as with several brands of legal insurance, and there is nothing unlibertarian about pro bono work. One could always make the case that holding hearings and trials where indigent defendants are unrepresented could wind up costing the court system more money in wasted time from trials that could be avoided by plea agreements, appeals of convictions once someone scrapes together funds for a lawyer, etc.

Failure to make counsel available to a detained foreign national may be in violation of agreements we have with other countries, where we would expect our nationals to be able to get a lawyer. I've no clue what our treaties with Nepal are.

Kevin

[Mr. Nice Guy]

"If they're here illegally, I could care less."

If you COULD care less, then it means you care. Very compassionate.

"For a Buddhist I'm sure it was a very enlightening experience."

Three months of solitary confinement probably allowed for a lot of meditation, since there was nothing else to do. Perhaps you're correct. I, on the other hand, would've gone insane without my Xbox.

[joe]

You know, Julian, you may be right. I have often heard conservatives of one stripe or another make libertarian-sounding arguments about their tax dollars being used to help blah blah blah, and always suspected that they were WAY more concerned that the field was being tilted against poor people a little less, than about the use of public funds. I will be thrilled if you people prove me right.

[Decnavda]

Legal Aid exists to help people with LEGAL problems - that is, problems that arrise due to the existence and complexity of laws. The most consistent libertarian position would be to advocate for universal public funding of legal advocacy - since the government created the problem by passing complex laws, they at least have a duty to ease the burden by paying the costs they impose.

[TWCheapskate]

Julian, you are one of very few libertarians I know who apparently doesn't take issue with public funding of legal defense for the indigent.

Now if you want to defend that position because of our screwy legal system or our socialized economy and go on to argue that the government sometimes makes it difficult for people in the courtroom, okay. But please don't call that a libertarian position because it isn't.

Decnavda, last time I checked, most libertarians take issue with public funding of pretty much anything (which is an actual, consistent libertarian position)--but as Kevin mentioned, eradicating the public defenders office is rather low priority for most of us.

[brooklyn dave]

Read the article in the New York Times this morning. I would say the vast majority of those detained after 9/11 were innocent folks who overstayed their visas. I believe that most of these people unjustly detained cannot sue the gov't and won't be able to get any kind of compensation. (tell me if I am wrong on this). Again we get back to inept intelligence gathering.

[zorel]

brooklyn dave,

we get your point 🙂

not to pick a nit, but if they overstayed their visa, they are not "innocent" - but that does not deserve the punishment they got. I hope they can be compensated for that and get shipped off to their native lands.

[Gary]

If they're here illegally, I could care less.

[garym]

Also in today's news, two guards from Iran's UN offices were expelled from the US for videotaping bridges, the Statue of Liberty and the New York subway. Maybe they were collecting information for terrorists, maybe they were just tourists. But these days using a camera in public is a legal risk if you aren't careful what you shoot, and I'd expect any competent spy to use a camera too small to notice.

[joe]

Gary's respect for the Law is so immense, that he's willing to overlook violation of...wait. Can you come back to me?

[TWC]

Given that Legal Aid spends the preponderance of its efforts trying to screw landlords on behalf of tenants who can't or won't pay the rent it is nice to see them look into something of substance.

I have to admit that porking the taxpayers one more time on behalf of somebody who overstayed their welcome isn't particularly appealing to me.

I didn't screw with the guy nor do I approve of screwing with the guy so don't yank my wallet to compensate him.

I know, how about the guys who locked him up in solitary compensate him out of their paychecks?

[joe]

Public funding for Legal Aid is a real rubber-meets-the-road moment for self proclaimed lovers of liberty, isn't it? You have to prioritize how much you value a little bit of money vs. ensuring that people the goverment wants to use force against have counsel. In other words, are you actually a lover of liberty, or are you just cheap?

[grylliade]

"If they're here illegally, I could care less."

If you COULD care less, then it means you care. Very compassionate.

C'mon. That's a pretty common idiom in many parts of the country. It means he doesn't care. Don't try to parse idioms as if they mean what they say literally. Maybe you've never run across this particular idiom before, in which case I apologize. But if you're just trying to tell people that they shouldn't use an idiom because it "doesn't mean the right thing," then that's just stupid.

[joe]

Cheapskate,

Do you oppose buying benches and gavels for judges, and paying the salaries of district attornies?

Is the presense of defense counsel any less necessary for the functioning of our judicial system?

[twc]

Joe, those who use the system should pay for it.

However, as has been said previously, this is low priority stuff comparatively. And if our only gripe was a few bucks spent on the public defenders office while everything else was moving smoothly along then many libertarians would just look the other way and let it go.

If you plan on funding defense for criminal matters why stop there? I have a friend who spent 300 grand on a bogus legal action brought against him. If it had been brought against me I would have not been able to "defend" myself. How about the taxpayers pony up for that kind of situation as well?

[joe]

"those who use the system should pay for it."

This consensual/individual responsibility line of thinking isn't really relevant to a case where a defendant "uses" the system because he got dragged out of his house in handcuffs.

If you did not have the resources to defend yourself, I believe you could have availed yourself of the public defenders office. As for your friend, Public Defenders are a program for the poor (like Medicaid), not a universal entitlement (like Social Security).

[jason]

she spent three months in solitary confinement, during the alleges but in the end its become false.

______________
legal aid lawyer