There’s a quota system in place for attorneys working in the office of U.S. Attorney Thomas P. O’Brien in Los Angeles.
As reported in an articlein the L.A. Times, O’Brien says: “This office does not and never will have quotas for its criminal prosecutors…. To suggest that any attorney in this office must charge a certain number of defendants each year or face discipline is simply not true.”
Too bad he’s lying. Or at least that’s what attorneys working for him say.
The problem I have is the idea that our court system should be “efficient.” A factory should be efficient. A bicycle racer should be efficient. Justice is not supposed to efficient. It’s supposed to be fair. In the real world, prosecutorial “efficiency” is just another word for plea-bargain. And a plea-bargain is not justice.
In this case, the motivation seems to be that more prosecuted cases equals more federal funding. The Prison-Industrial Complex in action.