grey-at-law

This week the media is buzzing about the U.S. Supreme Court hearing oral arguments Tuesday in District of Columbia v. Heller. This is a significant case, asking the court to make a ruling on the meaning and extent of the citizen’s right to bear arms as enshrined in the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. However, another constitutional right, the Sixth Amendment right to legal counsel and when it attaches was subject to oral argument before the Supreme Court on Monday.

Rothgery v. Gillespie County involves a case where Mr. Rothgery was arrested for being a felon in possession of a firearm, and given a hearing that in Gillespie County, Texas is called a “magistration”. Despite Rothgery’s requests for a lawyer, none was assigned. He spent three weeks in jail before being indicted, at which point he was assigned a lawyer. The lawyer then showed the court that Rothgery was in fact not a felon and the case was dismissed.

Simple Justice covers the case, and the history of the right to defense counsel better than I will attempt to do. I particularly like his characterization of the importance of the case to potential defendants and their attorneys:

The underlying issue in Rothgery really does have meaning for the rest of us as well. For upstate New York practitioners, who appear in local courts where the rules seem to come out of the blue, where there is no law that anyone else would recognize as such, where the judges run the local gas station and don’t know nothing about birthin’ no due process, the absence of an attorney for the defendant can prove critical.

Slavery, human trafficking, and debt bondage are all facets of the same thing. Something that is still around and flourishing despite being against the law around the world. It does get infrequent coverage in the media, when the occasional case comes to light and attracts legal prosecution.

I was reminded again of the issue by a National Public Radio interview with Benjamin Skinner, author of A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery. Skinner describes slaves, historical and modern, as “those that are forced to work under threat of violence for no pay beyond sustenance.” Follow the link and read the interview. (more…)