Improve Legal Defense for Poor with Free-market Solution | Stephen J. Schulhofer and David Friedman | Cato Institute: Commentary

Improve Legal Defense for Poor with Free-market Solution | Stephen J. Schulhofer and David Friedman | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Indigents commonly mistrust the public defender assigned to them, viewing him as part of the same court bureaucracy that is trying to put them in prison. Nearly everyone would regard it as outrageous for one side in a civil case to have the power to appoint the other side's lawyer. And yet, in a criminal case, where the plaintiff is the state, this happens every day. If the defendant is indigent — and roughly 80 percent of felony defendants are — it is the state that selects his attorney."

"The power to select the defense attorney need only be transferred, by means of a voucher system, from the government to the person he or she will represent."