Michigan’s failing public defense system fails the taxpayers; it is inefficient and wasteful.
Costly errors and, often, inappropriate sentences mean that Michigan taxpayers pay millions in wrongful conviction lawsuits and corrections costs.
Convicting the wrong man is a costly proposition – for everyone.
- Eddie Joe Lloyd suffered terrible injustices – a wrongful conviction and 17 long years in prison for a crime he did not commit. After his exoneration in 2002, Lloyd sued the State of Michigan and Wayne County for the failure to provide him with adequate representation.
- The suit was settled for approximately $4 million, in addition to the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent over 17 years to incarcerate Lloyd.These figures don’t even include the amount the state spent prosecuting the case and defending the appeal, and the cost of the habeaus and civil lawsuits.
An inefficient system is an expensive system.
- The State has shifted the cost of public defense onto its 83 counties. That means Michigan’s 83 counties have 83 different public defense systems with separate budget processes – which lead to 83 different levels of funding.
- In an effort to save money in the short term, many counties are cutting public defense spending at the risk of jeopardizing public safety and making mistakes that cost more money over the long term.
Taxpayers are pouring millions into an inefficient justice system that does not deliver the public safety or fairness taxpayers should expect.
Michigan needs a system of public defense that effectively and efficiently uses taxpayer dollars.
