Affording an attorney...

[Jim Choate]

You should have screamed 5th Amendment.

It says you don't have to answer ANY question.

On Wed, 4 Apr 2001, J.A. Terranson wrote:
 
> On Wed, 4 Apr 2001, Jim Choate wrote:
> 
> > Whether you're rich or poor the state is
> > OBLIGED to provide you an attorney.
> 
> Provided that you are willing to execute complete financial disclosure
> forms, and attest to their accuracy, *and* provided that this disclosure
> backs your assertion that you cannot afford an attorney.  
> 
> This is from personal experience ;-)
> 
> As I understand it: Yes, you are entitled to an attorney, however, that
> does *not* mean that the State *must* pay for it.

The last sentence most certainlly DOES say the state must pay for it, and
in ALL criminal cases. That 'compulsory process' clause guarantees it.

                                Amendment VI

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy
and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the
crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously
ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the
accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have
compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the
Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

Since there is no clause which states that I as the accused must pay for
my own defence (which if you think about it for half a second goes against
democratic philosophy in the first place, the burden is always on the
accuser) I claim the right, under the 9th, that the state must pay.

The state wishes to disagree?

                                 Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or
to the people.

Now the state is REQUIRED to demonstrate through some clause (ie delegate)
in the Constitution that the defendent MUST show financial disability?
Haven't we already demonstrated that there is no such clause above?

Hence, the state is required to provide an attorney for every person who
is accussed of a crime. No exceptions, no test, no if's, no and's, no
but's.

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