You Are Needed Now.

Oh boy, so it's Wednesday.

Remember when musicians used to get up on stage and play? And they were pretty good musicians? And we were all entertained by this?

Yep, those were the days.

So I see my friends Rick Freedman and Carlos Martinez are holding a press conference at 11:30 this morning:

On Wednesday, April 22, 2009 at 11:30 AM, Eleventh Judicial Circuit Public Defender Carlos Martinez will hold a joint Press Conference with Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (FACDL) - Miami Chapter President Rick Freedman to announce FACDL-Miami's participation in a Pro Bono Initiative. The Press Conference will take place at the Public Defender's Office.

Beginning this week, more than 35 experienced criminal defense attorneys who are members of FACDL-Miami, will begin accepting felony cases from the Public Defender's office, as part of a volunteer (pro bono) attorney initiative to help Miami-Dade's poor. The initial response to the program has been fantastic and veteran lawyers with nearly 900 combined years dedicated to the legal profession in our community including Eugene Zenobi (39 years), Jack Blumenfeld (42 years), James McGuirk (42 years), Joel Robrish (40 years), William Aaron (37 years), Bruce Fleisher (36 years), Paul Morris (34 years), Bruce Alter (33 years), Richard Sharpstein (33 years), Alan Greenstein (32 years), Leonard Sands (31 years), Samuel Rabin (30 years), Jeffrey Weinkle (30 years), Richard Hersch (29 years), Eric Cohen (28 years), Milton Hirsch (27 years), Dennis Kainen (27 years), Michael Catalano (26 years), Lawrence Kerr (26 years), Rick Freedman (25 years), Faith Mesnekoff (25 years), Phil Reizenstein (23 years), Hector Flores (22 years), Tony Moss (22 years), Roberto Pardo (22 years), Marjorie Alexis (20 years), Robin Kaplan, Beatriz Llorente, Marshall Dore Louis, Mark Eiglarsh, Arthur Jones, Joaquin Padilla, Jackie Woodward, Keith Pierro, Larry McMillan, Elizabeth Perez, Michael Mirer, and others have offered their services to this wonderful program.

The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees all accused persons the assistance of counsel for their defenses. If that protection is to have any real meaning, then the Florida Legislature must provide the necessary funds in order for Public Defenders throughout the State to effectively represent their clients.

The Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers - Miami Chapter is aware of the critical situation that exists at the Public Defender's Office in the form of budget cuts and increasing caseloads. The result of this is that the attorneys in that office are handling too many cases and cannot be constitutionally effective in their representation of their current clients.

The legislature's answer to this problem is to create more crimes with new statutes, increase penalties for existing crimes and spend hundreds of millions of dollars to build more prisons. All of this results in more defendants being arrested, more cases being filed and an exponentially higher chance that an innocent man's freedom will be taken from him. In order for every accused American to have competent and effective counsel, the second branch of our government must stop ignoring, at budget time, the third branch.

This is a good thing. It's an example of how you can find meaning for yourself as a lawyer, of how you can contribute to being part of the solution instead of being part of the problem. Either that or you can go work for John Ashcroft.

It's no secret we are big fans of Carlos Martinez at this crappy blog, and for good reason: he's reasonably competent at what he does, and his heart is in the right place.

What more do you want from a public servant, particularly in this town?

As a civil litigator I was a strong proponent of his initiative to bring in bored, inexperienced, to-be-fired BigLaw associates to help out with the public defender's caseload. I know Rumpy and his merry crew of Shumified defense lawyers all derided this idea, but I think it's great.

Part of the criticism stems from a perception that criminal law is an elusive beast that can only be mastered by those in the know and who are conversant in the mystic arts.

It's certainly true that to be highly skilled at this speciality takes much talent and years of dedication.

But how about being mediocre or even slightly below average at it? You know what I am talking about.

Seriously, how hard is that?

Another part of the criticism stems from the perception that BigLaw attorneys are lousy trial lawyers and wouldn't know how to find a courtroom, let alone succeed in one.

Ok, fair point.

But the fact is these lawyers got their jobs because they are smart, capable, and quick learners. They succeeded at law school and are for the most part capable of schlepping their way through a motion to suppress hearing, assuming they get some training first.

Why not give them the training, plebes?