The First Box

The first of the two boxes described here designates the parameters of the judicial system, which are politically established.

These politically generated parameters are, for example, the restrictions upon public defenders that attempt to prevent them from bringing civil litigation in support of a client’s criminal case. Another politically generated parameter is the restriction upon most government funded, federal habeas corpus lawyers, which attempts to prohibit or severely limit these lawyers from assisting court appointed, state court counsel in preserving federal issues at the state court trial level.

This list of similar parameters continues. At every junction, these assumed limitations cripple the opportunities of lawyers, who, without these restrictions could be effective advocates using the necessary skills of advocacy on behalf of indigent persons.

Lawyers handicapped by these limitations allow the atrophy of their advocacy muscles to so disable them that they become huge obstacles to other advocates, who must spend too much of their time dealing with criticism by being compared to and responding to criticism from these lame-brained, disabled peers, who see job security as life’s Mecca.

The parameters of the first box illustrates just a few of the parameters in the judicial system – the parameters defined by legislative bodies – the parameters defined by the courts – the parameters the courts attempt to enforce – the parameters defined by most “legal scholars” during the educational process of want-to-be lawyers – the parameters that most lawyers are willing to accept in exchange for their personal comforts – the parameters of the judicial system that the overrepresented persons and entities in our society frequently transgress. These are the political limitations imposed upon the underrepresented indigent persons in our society.

 After all, as the arguments of the pigs go, our Constitution only promises individuals a fair trial, which commitment is not interpreted to be the same disposition obtained by wealthy persons, who obviously have access to, and use of, both political and judicial influence obtained through their financial resources.

 For indigent persons, the walls of this first “box” are heightened and made even more confining by the restrictions placed upon the representatives assigned to indigent persons. Law schools do not train lawyers to deal with the problems unique to the representation of indigent persons, in fact, law schools engage in inverse training by indoctrinating lawyers in clinical programs only to provide representation, which can be provided by staying inside the box. In reality, for indigent persons, the walls of this first primarily politically created “box” consist of razor wire wound in place with the social fabric of our society, which accepts the political reality that indigent persons are not to receive the same quality of representation as wealthy persons.

 The financial cost and political influence necessary to become a member of the judiciary today makes it an ever increasing problem for anyone to realistically believe that the political process can be separated from the judicial system. The challenge therefore becomes for representatives of indigent persons to learn how to compete in the political process in order to obtain judicial fairness for indigent persons.

 This challenge is not being met because we devote 99% of our training of lawyers to teaching the fruitless skills of representation within the box. Why? Because, this type of training is politically acceptable, and besides, most people only understand this type of advocacy.