A number of studies have addressed the respective influences of such legal factors as offense seriousness, and such extralegal factors as race, on imprisonment decisions. One factor that is not easily classified as either legal or extralegal-pretrial detention-has not received as much attention as the "typical" legal and extralegal variables, although some researchers feel that pretrial detention plays a pivotal role in imprisonment decisions. This exploratory article assesses the relationship between pretrial detention and the decision to incarcerate in adult felony cases in a Florida county, controlling for various legal and extralegal factors. Results indicate that those defendants who had been subject to pretrial detention were more likely to be incarcerated, and to receive longer sentences if they were incarcerated, than defendants who had been released pending case disposition.

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The Effect of Pretrial Detention on Imprisonment Decisions

Presumption of Guilt examines the excessive use of pretrial detention: the practice of jailing criminal defendants without trial. Around the world, millions of people who should be presumed innocent are held in pretrial detention for months or even years while they await trial. Many pretrial detainees are held in appalling conditions, tortured, denied medical care and access to a lawyer, and exposed to disease; they can lose their homes, jobs, and even families. The excessive use of pretrial detention is a massive, global - but overlooked - human rights violation.

Presumption of guilt : the global overuse of pretrial detention

https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/asu/f/Williams_Marian_public_defenders_Florida.pdf

The effectiveness of public defenders in four Florida counties

The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states that a criminal defendant has the right to counsel for his defense, and the Fourteenth Amendment states that defendants must be provided due process and equal protection under law. Despite this, it is unclear whether indigent defendants in the United States-who are disproportionately ethnic minorities-are receiving such protections when it comes to the defense of their criminal cases. Approximately 80 percent of criminal defendants require court-appointed counsel because they are indigent. Many have questioned whether the case outcomes of defendants with court-appointed counsel are equivalent to those of defendants with retained counsel (Marcus, 1994).The focus of this note is a public defender system. Public defender systems have been subject to much criticism because of the problems that some jurisdictions face. Many systems are underfunded, resulting in low salaries for attorneys and insufficient legal and support staff. The lack of funds and staff can result in overwhelming caseloads (Calogero, 1995; Drecksel, 1991; Marcus, 1994; Ogletree, 1995). It appears that one of the biggest problems facing all indigent defense systems is funding. Funding can affect the quality of services provided if there are not enough resources to do the job adequately. The current study addressed this issue by examining the public defender system in a northern Florida county. Effectiveness can be measured in a number of ways, including client satisfaction, number of dismissals, and favorable outcomes. This study focused simply on whether public defenders are able to obtain similar sentences for their clients when compared with private attorneys, controlling for relevant case characteristics such as charge seriousness and prior record. The state of Florida is considered to have an above-average public defender system (Spangenberg Group, 1996); therefore, negative results attributed to a good public defender system could have strong policy implications.

A Comparison of Sentencing Outcomes for Defendants with Public Defenders Versus Retained Counsel in a Florida Circuit Court

Decades of government intervention have helped develop the South African agriculture sector to its present state. Policy reforms have included trade and exchange rate policies to increase the country's international competitiveness, reduce poverty and promote economic growth. These reforms are facilitating the growth in agricultural trade and South Africa's reintegration into the global economy. Annual agricultural exports and imports have increased. This paper uses annual data and a vector error-correction model to investigate the supply and demand relationships for agricultural trade flows in South Africa during the past four decades. The results show that prices, real exchange rates, domestic production capacity and real incomes have significant impacts on the country's agricultural trade. In particular, exchange rate volatility has negative impacts. This cannot be viewed solely as an exogenous source of macroeconomic instability in South Africa, as domestic policies play a crucial role in influencing ...

Exchange rate volatility and agricultural trade under policy reforms in South Africa

The problems facing indigents in criminal cases are well documented and have been so since the early part of this century.1 Nevertheless, funding for public defender services remains woefully inadequate. Studies at both the state and the federal level document the inadequacy of the resources available to those who are charged with the responsibility of defending the accused.2 Indeed, even the Supreme Court has noted the inability of public defenders to provide adequate counsel as a result of their limited resources and training.3 Yet the problems remain. It is not possible to be certain why so little progress has been made in reforming the provision of public defender services in the face of so much evidence of the need for dramatic reform. Perhaps the failure of reform is a result of a general lack of appreciation of the fundamental societal values that public defender services further. Perhaps it is because the challenges facing public defenders, though well documented, are unknown to those in positions of authority. Or perhaps our leaders are aware of the importance of these services and of the problems facing public defenders but are unable to devise adequate solutions. This essay will address each of these potential explanations seriatim by attempting to articulate the importance of public defender services, examining the stresses facing the modern public defender, and drawing attention to a few particularly meritorious solutions that have been suggested by other scholars. This essay will then offer some anecdotal advice for public defenders and those designing public defender services based on my own experiences as a public defender in Washington, D.C.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1192169.pdf

An Essay on the New Public Defender for the 21st Century

Judge A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr. will long be remembered for his tireless efforts to further justice in the United States. However, his vision of a society free from racial prejudice and discriminatory treatment was not limited to our borders, and thus he spent years working to eradicate the most blatant form of racial discrimination that existed during his lifetime: apartheid in South Africa. At the trial at which he faced the death penalty for his own efforts to oppose apartheid,1 Nelson Mandela stated,

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J Charles

Papers

An Essay on the New Public Defender for the 21st Century

From Pretoria to Philadelphia: Judge Higginbotham's Racial Justice Jurisprudence on South Africa and the United States