Diversion of Justice (Page 3 of 3)

Stephens said the office is now embarking on a national search for a director who will be responsible for securing funding and rebuilding the social services staff.

“Right now we’re reeling. The way we practice law now is different than how it’s been for the past four or five years, so we have lawyers trying to figure out, without these resources available to me, what do I do now,” Stephens said. “I think it’s fair to say that right now we’re in a state of flux and we are adjusting based on a reduction of resources.”

Stephens blames the lack of funding available on two dynamics: the impersonal aspect of criminal justice legislation and the abstract approach of viewing the system in unrealistic and hypothetical scenarios. He related a story about his father that reflects his view of how public opinion on the criminal justice system is often developed at a safe distance from the realities of the issue.

“My dad got more conservative as he got older, and, of course, he supported me in my work, but I could tell that my dad had sort of ideological conflicts going on in his head about how I could do what I was doing,” Stephens said. “He would go to court with me, and he would walk out of court and go, ‘It can’t work that way. That’s not right, that’s not fair’. My dad, I think, was probably representative of most of society, had no idea how the system worked, and when he saw it and saw how it was working, he was not nearly as proud of it as he thought.”

Stephens said the inconsistencies in public perception and the reality of the system make the job of public defense and holistic representation even more difficult. “What we fight all the time is the orientation that is determined in a black and white, abstract, intellectual context versus a real context,” Stephens said. “When you put a face to it, when you put a living, breathing soul, and you start injecting empathy and an understanding of, or even a discussion about what led the person to do what it is that he/she is accused of doing, then it becomes more complicated.”

SStephens said he often receives and is exasperated by requests to handle a case personally because of the perception that the defendant is a good kid who just made a mistake.

“You know, everybody is a really good kid to somebody—to his uncle, to his mom, to his dad, to his brother, to his neighbor. What may make sense in a vacuum, in black and white, becomes very difficult, sometimes becomes more difficult to implement, when it’s a human being who will endure the punishment. And to just convict them, to lock them up and throw them in jail, they’re going to get out, and you’re not doing any good, you’re not making any progress.”