askchapo

I'm gonna flip this one over a bit but hear me out. I live in a major city that allows for each and every one of our judges to be voted on. To help with this we have a website that basically pulls the information on where all these judges are coming from, what they used to do. Pretty much they were all lawyers, and so the site explains what type of cases they either defended or prosecuted. They also tell you if they were a defender or prosecutor and if they had any controversies (and what those controversies were).

So last election of course I gotta sit down and look over every single one of these folks to see what they were up to. My gut was only vote yes on defenders and vote no on all prosecutors, but then I looked into some of them.

Of course most of the prosecutors were criminal prosecutors, many for kids, those folks can literally go fuck off into the sun. But there were some standouts. One had controversies because she has spent the last 10 years pretty much only prosecuting cops. Another is a prosecutor for securities frauds and white collar crime. A third only takes landlords to court. I was fascinated.

Of course then I started looking into the defenders too. If someone is prosecuting the above list then of course there are folks defending them too.

Overall I think prosecutors are bad and defenders are good but it really does depend on exactly what they're prosecuting. I voted for the guy taking down slumlords and the lady whose made it her career to take down cops because of course. Love to see them as judges

Generally speaking, yes. They serve capital by participating in a justice system that enslaves working class people.

Yes, some people brought before some prosecutors deserve worse than they get, but it’s definitely not the majority, or arguably even a significant amount.

yes. there are a few who have run on refusing to prosecute the war on drugs but 99% of prosecutors are cops

Yup. Prosecution is cop shit. ACAB.

yes

Prosecutors are often an extension of the cops but not always, Public defenders are often helping poor people get better verdicts in DUI and petty theft cases but sometimes are getting domestic abusers and child abusers better verdicts

Had a friend who worked as a prosecutor in Austin, TX for a few years. She was Harvard trained and thought she'd come home to do some real good. A lot of what she ended up doing was arguing with her bosses about how the homeless people who kept getting swept up by the cops weren't best served by getting repeatedly fined when they obviously had no ability to pay. She ended up becoming an extension of the city's (already meager and poorly funded) social services, effectively operating hand-in-glove with a public defender who was too overwhelmed and disinterested to handle the absurd caseload shoveled both of their ways.

Eventually, the workload and contrary instructions and the horrible psychic damage she had to suffer dealing with bullshit got the better of her and she quit. I wouldn't say she was a ghoul for doing the job, but it does seem like the job rewarded ghouls and punished everyone else. The overwhelming majority of folks who land on your desk are going to be burnouts of one sort or another. Some of them are going to invoke pity. Others disgust. Others confusion. You don't really get points for doing the right thing or the wrong thing. You get points for clearing the backlog as quickly and efficiently as possible, so your boss/coworkers don't feel as overwhelmed as you're going to feel at the end of the day.

Prosecution can have significant elements of victim advocacy, and when the right person is in the role they can influence things like, e.g., more sexual offending being prosecuted (even going against police recommendations). Prison abolition (not the broader defund movement) is a hard one for me, tbh, because there are people who just aren't safe to be in society the way it is (serious family abuse and things like that spring to mind), and we have no alternative structures to remove them in our society currently.

This is a key idealism vs materialism thing for me, and I think leftists knee jerk it too much. Yes, a LOT of prosecutors ARE ghouls, but I don't think it's necessarily a ghoulish job given what's currently available to us as societal tools for public safety.

Edit: My point is more leftist prosecutors please. You may get the wall by affiliation given the above knee jerk, but you can do material good as well.