In the United States the legal system has established the most severe punishments for those who take the life of another human being. It has also offered the opportunity for those accused of causing a death to defend themselves. This has been necessary because of the risk of someone being wrongly accused, but also because of the chance that the death was unintended or done solely in self defense. When accused of killing someone, either directly or indirectly, every individual must build as strong a case as possible to prove their innocence no matter how obvious the case appears to them.
Innocent people do get convicted of murder and many have lost all of their hopes and dreams only because they were not defended properly. It is only the skills of a talented criminal defense attorney or team that prevents these types of unfortunate results. There are numerous examples of individuals accused of murder relying on assistance from public defenders and losing their case. Their stories are often told decades later when their case is reopened and their innocence becomes blatantly obvious. This does not happen because some lawyers want innocent people to go to jail or even because the lawyer they had was too inept to defend their client. It happens because public defenders are involved in so many cases every day, they lack the time necessary to research and discover the full story.
It is impossible to know the exact numbers of people that have not gotten the justice they deserve. The Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia once claimed in an Op-Ed that less than one-third of one percent of the people convicted were innocent. Many others who have done studies on the issue strongly disagree. Many of these researchers believe the number is closer to 4 percent. People may think this is not an issue to worry about because it is such a small number. However, their feelings would change if they were one of the falsely convicted. Facing murder charges means someone could potentially lose their freedom for the remainder of their life. They may lose any career they have been building and never be trusted by their friends and family again. The risks are far too serious to allow an over-scheduled public defender to take the reins.
