Tuesday, September 30, 2008

A Complaint I Never Thought I'd Hear

After years of bitching and complaining and putting down lawyers, denizens of Idaho's small counties are finding out: yes, they do need a couple of lawyers here and there after all.

According to the Idaho State Bar, there are 3,165 active lawyers in the state. (I'm willing to bet there are more lawyers than that in New York City alone.) The Second Judicial District, which includes the small counties of Clearwater, Idaho, Latah, Lewis and Nez Perce, has just 178 active lawyers. Of these, most are probably in Latah County (Moscow) and Nez Perce County (Lewiston). There are probably more lawyers in this picture of the Briefcase Brigade than there are in all of Idaho County, the biggest county in the state in terms of square mileage, but one of the smallest in terms of population.

And so, when somebody in Idaho County gets charged with a crime, and can't afford to hire private counsel, court-appointed counsel has to be imported all the way from Moscow. That is a drive of at least two hours -- could be more, depending on the weather.

So if anybody out there reading this is in Idaho County, and is charged with a crime, and has court-appointed counsel, and is not scheduled to go to court until winter, then there are two things you need to do: (1) Since the chances are fairly good you're Catholic, go to confession. And (2) be very, very good to your public defender.

1 comment:

  1. LOL! Yes people, by all means go to confession! And then sign up Anita for your lawyer!

    ReplyDelete