They're Fed Up and Won't Take It Any More

Last month, Philadelphia Common Pleas Court President Judge Pamela Pryor Dembe took court-appointed defense attorneys to task for endless postponements in the city's courtrooms.

She was responding to "Justice: Delayed, Dismissed, Denied," the Inquirer's phenomenal, exhaustive critique of the sloggish, chaotic, dysfunctional mess known as the Philadelphia justice system.

I've gotta say, her comments puzzzled me at the time. I wrote two columns earlier this year about the challenges facing both court-appointed attorneys and the indigent defendants they're paid a pittance to represent.  For months and months, while the city and state crunched budget numbers, court-appointed attorneys went unreimbursed for their work, yet were still expected to mount a vigorous defense for their clients. (In one case, a lawyer I profiled was becoming almost as indigent as the men adn women he represented.)

It sure seemed unfair, and lawyers who represented the poor felt undervalued by the system and by the Philadelphia Bar Association.

Now, the Pennsylvania Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers has issued a biting response to Dembe's assertions that court-appointed attorneys are at the heart of the justice travesty. Association president Michael Engle, in a letter posted on the PACDL website and sent to Dembe and the media, writes a thoughtful, pointed rebuttal that is too long to reprint here. But click this link and I think you'll agree the lawyer makes his case.