The Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled on July 28, 2004 that a shortage of defense lawyers caused by low pay is violating the constitutional rights of some poor defendants and all such cases must be dismissed against suspects who go without a lawyer for more than 45 days. The Supreme Judicial Court also ruled that criminal defendants cannot be held more than seven days in jail without a lawyer.
Let me see if I got this right: If you live in Massachusetts, commit a crime, tell the court you're too poor to hire a lawyer, you get to go free after seven days?
Are not lawyers considered "Officers of The Court?" Why can not a judge, who is also a lawyer, assign one of his fellow "Officers of The Court" to represent the defendant? Once again, we have an example of judges writing new laws instead of interpreting existing ones. Liberal Democrats just love these kinds of rulings. Now you know why the Democrats have blocked so many of the judicial appointments of President Bush. This is just another example of a liberal court making up new laws as they go along. Remember, this is the same court that made gay marriages legal in Massachusetts. In case you were wondering how these judges got their jobs, they were appointed, you guessed it, by the liberal politicians that dominate Massachusetts, John Kerry's home state. Now Waffling John and his fellow Democrats would like to impose upon the rest of us their idea of justice. I wonder how they would feel if, God forbid, one of their family members were murdered and the defendant was so poor he had to be released from jail after seven days.