Wait, are you sure you want to plead guilty? An interesting photo for Slate Magazine to use for this article about the inadequate, mannequin like representation from court appointed attorneys; a Black judge in the background looking down on a white woman defense attorney and her white male client - a statistical rarity. Don't just believe, go and see - go down to your local arraignment and criminal courts and see for yourself - who is being locked up and by whom? Many (not all) of the non-whites involved (judges, defense attorneys, prosecutors and court staff) are there for show, like potted plants - w/o them it just wouldn't look right would it?/refinement of white supremacy.  

This article and this photo should be considered in the context of white supremacy/racism. White supremacy is carried out through deception and/or violence. Poor representation and substantial numbers of non-white people in greater confinement is the point.] [MORE]

From [HERE] and [MORE] Earlier this month, in an attempt to cut $2 million from its budget, North Carolina eliminated access to public counsel for thousands of poor criminal defendants each year. That’s not what the new law says: Tucked inside the state’s new budget, it reclassifies more than a dozen crimes into misdemeanors that cannot result in jail time. This is part of a pattern. Over the past two decades, swelling caseloads and fiscal belt-tightening have led several states, including Virginia and Minnesota, to create classes of crimes that can only be punished with a fine. In other states, the same thing happens case by case in the courtroom, where judges and prosecutors routinely declare they will not pursue jail time for minor infractions.

What’s not to like, if you’re caught with a small amount of drugs or driving without a license? The problem is that, left to fend for themselves in the courtroom, most defendants lack the basic legal skills to argue their innocence or reduce their punishment, and they’re often not told of the lifelong consequences that even minor convictions can carry. In an era when getting marked as criminal is often the severest punishment in itself, it makes increasingly little sense for only those facing incarceration to have a right to counsel.