Question of the Day.

"If you were charged with a crime, would you rather be rich and guilty or poor and innocent?"

USC Law Professor Susan Estrich:

If you were charged with a crime, would you rather be rich and guilty or poor and innocent?

Every year, when I ask my students that question, rich and guilty wins by a mile. And who am I to say they are wrong? After all, over the years, I've had my share of success in securing reversals of the convictions of many criminal defendants a jury had found to be guilty. While I try to do my share of pro bono work, the truth is that most of my clients can afford me. And the ones who can't are generally people I take on precisely because they were so poorly represented in the first place.
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[W]hile the market is hardly a perfect judge of talent, and while there are many public defenders offices around the country staffed by capable and dedicated lawyers, there is a definite correlation between competence and cost.

The lawyers who make their livings by taking appointments to represent those who can't afford counsel are not the lawyers you would hire if you had the resources to choose. And the reimbursement rates paid to those lawyers create powerful incentives not to investigate or prepare (you get more for court time than prep time) and not to take a case to trial (you are limited on total hours, even in court).

Unfortunately, the old saw that you get what you pay for holds true much more often than it should.

Hm. "If you were charged with a crime, would you rather be rich and guilty or poor and innocent?"

I suppose how your answer comes out, and whether you're in the minority or majority, depends on the setting. Here's another timely one:

"Would you rather be sick and insured, or healthy and uninsured?" And no fair changing the question by scrambling the variables.

We have innocent rich men, afterall, and there's plenty of guilt amongst our poor. It's distinguishing men despite their circumstances or backgrounds -- either way -- and calculating the shifts of a repentant heart that ultimately makes this justice business so mysterious, so elusive, even for our best-paid, human Experts.