#dont give credit this didnt involve effort so just enjoy

[enemui]

off the hook/fire & ice icons

[misqnon]

nhello monti! it is March Again :v i feel like it's super obvious who i am so thank u for humoring me and using the name i gave u LOL.

my bad, ive never really celebrated april fools so i forgot it.. was... that day. im also glad u checked ur inbox. also theres no pressure to reply in a certain time frame!! i see ur posts that u have seen my asks and thats enough to put me at ease. so . take ur time!

fellow zoro fan!!!! i have a hard time choosing a favorite straw hat tbh.. they r all so special to me. i do probably like brook and franky just slightly more though. old men my beloved (tbh franky isnt that old but hes old compared to the younger members so). wano is the arc of buff men!! as a man liker... it pleases me.

the edit u sent Is So Good. thank u for sharing. i keep seeing sanji tiktoks and wanting to send them to u but i dont wanna spam ur inbox </3 my messages r already So Long..

ive listened to a bit of the dub (through clips) and tbh i do like it!! i like brook's voice acting a lot (hes who ive heard the most of. also he nails the laugh, which is very important to me) but luffys voice is so jarring to me i just cannot.. get past it. i think im just too used to the sub luffy after . a decade . of hearing him sound like that. plus i usually have to use subtitles anyways cuz i have an audio processing disorder so. sub is just what i default to. but yeah definitely valid to watch dub instead!! they do a great job from what ive seen :)

i have seen a bit of extra content involving the live action cast and tbh usopps actor.. is my favorite. he nails usopp. hes real life usopp. and i love usopp a lot so,,. tbh i might just pirate it (ahaha.... pirate.... pirate.... pirate the pirate show .......) because i really want to watch it!!

YEAH u have plenty of time!! plus i imagine there will be a part of the story where they go back and visit places they said they would return to (like u mentioned laboon). so 2 more islands plus however long it takes to revisit everything! no need to stress

stay strong 🫡 egghead will be so much better going in blind!

catholic guilt about liking sanji is ... i get it. thats funny /lh. i also feel intense guilt for the weirdest and simplest of things LMAO. im glad i didnt make u feel bad about it!!

YEAHH FELLOW DOFFY LOVER!! ive seen a few videos by melonteee and theyre super good. i would watch more but.. ironically (considering i got 800 episodes through one piece..) i cant watch a lot of longform content because i space out so bad. it takes a lot of effort for me to give my full attention and it gets pretty exhausting so i dont do it often. ur art of him is lovely!!! tongue piercings..... 😳.

i got to like .. stardust crusaders. in jjba. and i imagine i just havent seen enough of dio to feel attached to him like i do doffy, but i have seen a few people say they feel the same!!! ive kinda been wanting to go back to it but i just hate old man joseph joestar with such a passion.... i get too angry when hes on screen LOL. its way worse than how i feel abt sanji bc i dont simmer with intense RAGE every time sanji's on screen and i have a lot more positive feelings towards him. that was a bit of a tangent, whoops.

thabk u for validating my sanji hatred. actually i have come to enjoy a lot of sanji content recently though, and i dont think i hate him as much?? as i did?? i will credit this to u. idk if me just talking about it with another human being helped or if its because i see how much u love him but. i think this is good for me!! less rage .. is always good for me. watch me go back to hating him with a passion again now that ive said im fond of him. because im That Inconsistent 😭😭 (i hope this doesnt happen)

it was only super recently where i realized its not inherently a bad thing to like problematic media. to be fair tho there are definitely a lot more problematic fans when u enjoy problematic media, and i see it with one piece a lot. there is a WEIRD amount of transphobes in this community and i cant help but feel like part of that is because of oda's writing spreading some common transphobic ideas. i think hes redeemed himself a lot with the most recent trans characters, and i adore them, but the damage.. is done. but yeah im sure another big part of why theres so much negativity is just because one piece is insanely popular. the bigger the fandom, the bigger the shitty part of it is.

THEY *HAVE* EARNED THE RIGHT TO BE REAL PEOPLE.. UR SO RIGHT. i love that u can see their morals so clearly in like. every action . or inaction. they take. ughh. people talk about luffy falling asleep during people's backstory and say hes rude for it. and its like!! thats a core part of his character!!! he doesn't care about what happened in the past!! he just cares about how you are NOW. tbh though i WOULD be offended if he fell asleep while i was traumadumping LOL. like as a character decision its genius, but as a person .. i am too sensitive for that. BUT IT SHOWS HIS CHARACTER SO WELL!!

IM SO GLAD U NOTICED AUJFH. that moment is so special. u ARE my favorite sanji lover!! my favorite character?? honestly its law... hes so stupid (/pos)... but like.. its hidden behind a very serious mask. i just love people who are extremely silly. and someone who hides their silliness with all their might (and fails) makes them more silly. some of my favorite law moments are in wano and i Really .. ugh. i wish i could tell u but i refuse to spoil even the most minor of things!! so i will wait till u get there. also his backstory just Kills me. it . it hurts. i love tragic characters. looks at choso from jjk. i have a type .

law may be my ultra favorite but i have .. at least 30 different Favorites. including the straw hats. and tbh everyones at about the same level.. in terms of how much i love them. i think its safe to say i adore one piece characters. its because everyone is silly!!! i can list all the ones im aware of (since there r so many op characters.. i have. a list . but i keep adding to it.) if ur curious LOL. if not, no worries :)

YEAHHH ZOROOO MY LOVE!! thank u for The Food. yum. his one eye is very pretty in ur style 🥺. i havent tried to draw him yet tbh but i understand the struggle!! i tried drawing choso a while ago and his hair is so insanely painful.. art is hard.

hello march!!

is. is it super obvious

i have a guess but i wasn’t feeling super confident about it or anything JSAHBZJVHFD

More below ↓

i actually had like no idea until i received a reply earlier and now im wondering if ur possibly a recent mutual of mine 🔍🧐 maybe starting…with @ a….but i will not make u answer if u dont wanna HAHAHA

i will humor u as long as u want 👍

good to know there’s no pressure!! as soon as i get a message i like to reply as soon as i can but thats bc i get excited lmao. however this does make me feel more at peace

YEAA FELLOW ZORO FAN!! originally my favs were just the top 3 of 1. sanji 2. robin and 3. franky but as we got past water 7 and franky didnt get much more development spotlight he fell a bit just bc i dont get to see him doing much :( still love him though. bc of Shipping Reasons (embarrassing) Zoro got on my radar more and i started to appreciate him as a character more and more. plus he’s just. really badass im ngl. and in addition to that he is. so fucking stupid and uncool and goofy at the same time and that just makes him more likable. so now i just have a quartet of favs cause zoro wormed his way in there somewhere and i hold him dear to my heart. (plus im so bad with directions it is QUITE LITERALLY almost as bad as zoro and so i. genuinely relate to him on that LMAO) but i agree !! i LOVE ALL THE STRAWHATS VERY MUCH. I CANT EVEN CHOOSE A LEAST FAVORITE BC I LOVE ALL OF THEM A LOT. also god yes we fucking love an old guy in this household. and i LOOOVE FUURANKIIIII my silly king!! franky is fairly young but early on in the story when its just a bunch of teenagers and 20 somethings and then 34 year old franky is there its. kinda funny and i love that for him. also speaking of old men i called dofuwani old man yaoi once and someone called me out saying 41 and 46 was not old enough 😔 /ashamed. sorry yall lemme pull out some slash of rayleigh and crocus real quick-

aside from the strawhats my other favs are doffy, crocodile, corazon…god there’s so many characters now that i think about it lmao. secondarily i also like bartolomeo, kizaru, kid, bon clay…i have huge crush on katakuri even tho i havent met him yet…im sure there will be more as i continue and meet more

omg im so flattered u consider sending me sanji tiktoks sjnkjcnd!??! someday. someday u have to do this for me. i will send u more funny edits and op posts

BROOK’S DUB VOICE IS GOD TEIR. ARE U TALKING ABOUT/ HAVE YOU SEEN THIS VIDEO. IAN SINCLAIR IS AMAZING LAMNDKJFN

i got used to luffys dub voice bc i watched it first but ive always been meh/neutral dislike towards it and once i heard mayumi tanaka in sub i was like damn. its the only voice i dont like but hes the Main Character. his sub voice also makes me like luffy more as a character mvkjdnvf dub just makes him sound more like a selfish weird boy instead of a silly selfish little guy. you feel me (and no i feel u even with dub i have captions on bc. yeah </3)

taz inaki and jacob are a trio of mischievousness and silliness that i adore. emily is also fun and goofy but on a more ~ refined ~ scale. and mackenyu is so professional to them all in comparison but it makes it hilarious tbh. i follow all of the main 5 on instagram and love seeing them post about it. the recent april fools video starring jacob (usopp) was. hilarious. like what is

(and yes…pirate it….do it….yohohoho or whatever nami would be proud)

i am so ready for wano and egghead i will stay strong for u march 🫡 must avoid spoilers…and still take my time to enjoy the story..

i understand not being able to do longform content lmao. i did watch their 3 hr stream comp of one piece odyssey but like…i had it on in the bg while doing other things. im glad uve seen their stuff tho!! its one of my fav one piece content channels. im glad u liked my doffy 🥹i embellished a Little bit but his piercings are actually from this colorspread !!

i was insane and in highschool when i was into jjba. a lot of it was also during the summers and i had a lot of free time so i. read all the way up through part 7 after watching parts 1-3 (or 4? cant remember). im not as into it anymore but jojos (and araki) still hold a place in my heart <3 HATING OLD MAN JOSEPH IS SO FUNNY KDSNFVK NO OFFENSE JUST LIKE. YEAH. U SHOULD HATE HIM. THATS A VALID RESPONSE AND HE DESERVES IT. KICK HIS CHEATING OLD ASS. i loved younger joseph and like a lot of ppl him cheating on suzie q pissed me da fuck off. but in pt 4 he’s frail and old and they make u feel bad but still. i KNow What You Did. appreciative u hate someone more than sanji tho like hell yea my boy aint at the bottom LMAO. its cool others have noticed the similarities between dio and doffy too! i always wonder if long running mangaka take insp from each other sometimes

omg…im converting u…my influence as the fav sanji lover /j. but that makes me happy!! hell yea we’re changing outlooks over here. i validate ur sanji hatred but i also wont be mad if u like him a little teehee. his fanon is. a lot better than his canon tho so. that helps. we are fixing him. taking him away from oda and dressing him up like a doll . and if u go back to hating him thats ok too at least he isnt old man joseph 

i only interact w one piece here on tumblr or in the 2 op discord servers i happen to be in. with it being so mainstream (and i have. never been in a mainstream popular fandom like this before) i know theres a ton of gross dudebros who like it so i try to avoid that. sucks to hear there’s a bunch of transphobia but im not surprised :/ i still do see yamato discourse and its like got damn how much convincing do u need yall. but no i agree it probably is the audience oda cultivated + his earlier portrayals…though i do really like that he. tried again and did better. though even with yamato i sometimes feel like he puts him in situations that go against canon (like why did he draw yamato as a geisha and include him in the womens day colorspread…oda why) but alas. give and take

YES THERE;S SO MANY CHARACTERS WHO HAVE INSTANCES LIKIE THAT!! SO MANY MORALS AND CONVICTIONS THEY STICK TO AND SO MANY STRONG CHARACTER TRAITS. thats why i find so many op characters easy to write, bc they’re outlined so heavily in the show in what their archetypes and ideals and behaviors are…it kinda bothers me that luffy falls asleep during moments like that too bc it would make ME upset but like. YEA THATS IN CHARACTER FOR HIM DFKNFV

AH A LAW LOVER!! he’s very popular !?!? i know he comes in again in wano but during punk hazard and dressrosa i was like is this enough screentime for how popular he is omg. i guess he’s just pathetic and sad and grungy punk emo boy . tbh if i didnt already have so many favs who fill that spot i would probably have him as a fav as well. but i do REALLY LIKE law. his backstory with cora….fucks me UP!! and he’s been through a lot and come out stronger. plus his juxtaposition and interactions with luffy and the strawhats is so fucking funny kcncd. the op server im in has PLENTY of law lovers so i see him often. i think i stole this from a tumblr post recently but i saw this and saved it to my phone bc i loved it so much

i relate to him here. he is so me. this was me dyking it up at university fr

ik this is from one piece party but i think it shows his secret silly here. he got it from cora i think how could he not. but he hides it under that I Am A Serious And Scary Doctor . like sure trafalgar 

YES send me the full list!! in return i will list more favs as well. mayhaps a tierlist of some kind. we will see

glad u liked the zoros :^) idk anything about jjk but i will look up this choso man one moment. [...] okay i actually really like his design (and hair) but that looks like hell to draw i wish u the best </3 i have a degree in art and ummm its still really hard sorry to tell u it does not get better </3 [JOKING THATS A JOKE A JOKE CJNCD]

here’s a question to leave u off with: what do you think each of the strawhats eye colors is? since most of them are just drawn with black dots. and IF DIFFERENT what are your headcanons/what do you Wish they were 👁️ eagerly awaiting ur response bc i have Opinions on this

talk to u next time!

[rqs902]

on one hand im happy that this means there’s gonna be a lot of official content since the eps are supposedly so long that they gotta cut them in half. 

youku has been pretty consistent with giving us a relatively good amount of official content. but on the other hand im always slightly concerned that by splitting up perfs, those whose perfs get aired first will have a competitive voting advantage since (as long as they do well) those kids will have a full extra day of persuading people to vote for them through their stage performance. It’s not as huge of a deal as when other shows split performances across weeks, because a whole week ahead is a much bigger advantage than one day ahead. but every day can help those who need the votes. at least akey and zhan yu got aired today.... feels bad for jin fan because he really needs the votes. 

also another down side is just this show’s eps are SO LONG they’re eating up a ton of my free time LOOOL but thats how these shows always go for me... because I always end up taking like double the amount of time to watch an ep, just to pause, digest, rewatch sections that i like (sometimes multiple times), make sure i understand, etc. i feel like these shows always consume my life during the few months they’re airing so i’ll just enjoy it while I can HAH

..

anyway ep 4 starting with singapore buddies huang junrong and sun yinghao speaking english with their singapore accents!!!!! lol can totally relate to yinghao tho, like when you cant read chinese you gotta find someone to translate for you

yang chaowen with dog!!!!! i wonder if the dog really likes him LOL they seem to appear together on camera often. akey with chen junhao!! and zuo linjie!! making friends!!!

lol i feel like the group leader choice method is some sort of extended advertisement for knock off apple products lol.........

HAHAHHAHAHAH LIN MO’S VIDEO STARTING OFF ALL FORMAL AND NERVOUS AND THEN XUE EN’S CUTS HIM WITH HIM BEING STUPID. I LOVE IT. there’s two types of people. how did they not vote for xue en HAHAHAH

interesting that they picked the songs for the self-composition group ahead of time, rather than make them make the song as part of the competition (looks at produce camp... fireman is my jam but the east binhe road team ran into complications with that, so I can see why it’d be more risky to let them do that again) but lucky for zheng renyu and li chenxu tho! I’m interested in hearing their music so i dont mind, just kinda wondering what the other kids who picked composition would’ve brought to the table

oh theyre still giving yan an screen time... every time i see him im happy but then feel oof

oo zhanyu’s first stage look is just so nice oof xikan talking to lin mo but lin mo looks ded and is all eye patched up :( 

LOL su er all jubilant over a sexy concept song - good luck with that

oooof this shot of jin fan’s perfect side angle 

aw akey being bested by shaopeng at every match... but im so excited to see what they can do together, theyre both so good at making music!!!! the resident music makers for each of their respective groups, tyger and coreone, theyre both so talented! def shaopeng has and deserves the credit but hopefully people will see akey contributed too bc im sure the two of them really led together, being the most experienced rappers hahaha

WHOA csp opening up to qu boyu and saying he has older step brother and sister who have a different mom from him and encouraging him to just be real when writing because there will be people out there who connect with his lyrics awww hes really taking this child under is wing and teaching him from zero, hes really like a big bro taking care of him and enjoying watching him grow. im glad csp is opening up and is self reflective enough to realize that he hasnt done so enough in the past and that he should involve himself more with the others. 

im happy cui shaopeng got to feature in the bts clip for his group, he deserves it and hasnt gotten much screentime relative to his talent before. im happy akey got a little time and some recognition for his skills too. honestly just happy akey FINALLY got to do a rap stage..... wish we couldve gotten more huang enyu and huang junrong but im happy they got to show off their vocals!! for being young vocals in a rap performance, their stage presence were both really good too! csp’s entrance is epic wow. 

wow this is the most hyper performance ive ever seeeen wow im so happy for akey because we know how long hes been waiting for a rap stage and wow csp’s leadership must be top notch to get this group to somehow be cohesive with such a not cohesive song LOL i respect that csp really respected akey’s skill and let him shine too. akey was a second c if ive ever seen one lol. they both got to shine and so did everyone else in their group, which is telling of his leadership and why this stage turned out so well that even all the teachers like jackson were so hype LOL 

OOF shen bohuai and lin mo talking about how akey’s lyrics are so moving like lin mo wanted to cry and bohuai felt like he could tell akey’s been through a lot

lol xikan and bohuai being all tough and lin mo being like lol i feel the pressure. shaopeng smiling like a proud parent when boyu gets good comments c: oof rip akey and shaopeng’s votes tho :c 

lin ran’s look tho LOL but zhan yu’s is so questionable?? why is he in this group ?? LOL but i guess its his turn to do something cutesy. mannnn why does zhan yu look like hes surrounded by children but hes not even that much older//?? hahahha ooooo is this the center zhan yu of legend?? ?hahahah yayyy hopefully more people will notice him! you know when i heard zhan yu was gonna be center, this was not the type of song i was imagining, but hey if it takes a cutesy happy song and a bunch of little kids around to get zhan yu a chance to be center, ill take it! i wish they’d show us some practice footage?? im confused why there isnt any?? i think sun boran’s stage presence is good! zhan yu’s voice so powerful yess somehow he managed to show off different aspects of his vocal skills in this very plain song LOL  im surprised lin ran didnt stand out a lot but when they pointed out that he purposefully put himself in the back to protect his team members i think that makes sense bc he knows being cute isn’t going to be able to win them as many votes but if the less popular kids in his group dont get votes, its a lot more devastating for them than for himself. lin ran didnt want this song and he didnt want to be cute but he really didnt want kids to suffer from choosing his group. lin ran has a cute image but i appreciate that this time we got to see a more serious side of him. isnt it ridiculous that theyve literally trashed zuo qibo and lin mo about being old but then literally i didnt realize until now sun yinghao is the oldest??? (he looks really young wow and so tiny aw) but also like they never bring up akey being old either?? some sort of weird bias going on... but i mean good for yinghao and akey lol 

but aw im glad theyre giving yinghao some attention... 10 years and starting off with jackson? oof... 

ayy zhan yu getting the most votes!! 

kou cong being older bro to zlj but also ultimate mentor to cxh aw yay for him getting some recognition from the judges and jin fan supporting him too heheh but it says a lot that he recognizes cxh’s efforts and wanted to put in his own effort to help him

i wonder if them giving zlj less audience votes is an elaborate scheme to get him more pity votes from the general public lol.... well im excited to see the rest of the stages tomorrow! 

[verngyu-moved]

hello !!! ive been too shy to send this till now but im thinking that ill be sending an extremely long message to you ! hopefully i won't reveal myself !!! i love you a lot like words can not express how thankful i am to you and to your posts and to your blog and hey it's okay. you don't have to do anything, your existence itself is enough and is good. you are loved greatly, and im so sorry i didn't say anything till now but i love you. greatly. extremely. more than mere words can describe (1/?)

or more than i, myself, can properly ever express ! i love you a lot and you are loved and cherished deeply and greatly. and whatever you decide, ill always support you. i believe that you can kick ass with your criminology course and i believe that you can shatter the very universe and reach the sky, and i firmly believe in this. you’re strong and i love you very much. thank you for your hard work and for making such beautiful content even when you don’t have time and is busy. it’s okay (2/?)even if you don’t make a lot of content nowadays, it’s okay to take a break. it’s okay to be in a funk. it’s okay to not want to do anything. it’s okay to give yourself some time and just let yourself go. it’s okay. your gifs may not do as well as before, but hey! think about this!! whenever i see your gifs on my dash, i immediately know it’s yours. i think your gifs are these pockets of joy and loveclouds and i genuinely mean this. they are always so pretty and so perfectly timed and (3/?)well-made. like seriously !! they always look so wonderful and idk how your hands can do it. like bless you ! i love you very much. thank you for your constant hard work really! i can not like commend you in ways i want to cause my words is lacking but i really just wanted to tell you that your blog is special. and that i absolutely love you here, but really, you should do what you want. what makes you the happiest. what gives you the most ease and comfort. please always put yourself (4/?)before others ! you deserve it !!! you really do!! anyhow i just wanted to tell you that i love and cherish your greatly and that thank you so much for all that you do. you’re doing well. you have been doing well. and i know that you will continue to do well, so give yourself a little more credit, and be kinder to yourself. you’re a lovely starbeam and i love you very much! thank you once again!! im sorry hah this is REALLY LONG! ill leave with a pickup line! are you French.. CAUSE MADAM! (5/5)

–

well firstly, thank u for this very thoughtful and kind message. i did not expect something like this!!

i rly didnt make that post to guilt-trip anyone into messaging me, following me, sending an ask, etc., i just really dont think anyone cares about me or would miss me if i deactivated. friends, sure, but w/friends ive made on here i have added on other social media so i dont think they could really “miss” me bc they see my dumbass posting mingyu pics on my insta story because of this, i think about doing that a lot lately

i dont really even know why it bothers me so much (my posts underperforming); its just a site. and ive even held myself back from making gifs even though i tell myself “no one’s giffed it yet” and i want to gif it,, it’s bc my effort seems futile. it sounds sad but i feel like ““my time”” as a content creator here is up…you know? like trends. some people and things just arent it anymore, i guess. ive also really become tired of the internet dramas and inter-fandom dramas. drama is unavoidable online or not but i do find myself being stressed out by things that dont even directly involve me lol. and i’m still into seventeen/still love them btw, this isnt abt them

..maybe part of my change in perspective on this is due to being in college + doing commissions n stuff for spare cash here and there. so one downside to that (or upside depending on how you look at it) i dont really feel like doing loads of free work in exchange for no payment. its such a capricorn thing to say but i’ve found that i really like creating youtube videos, and since i can make a profit on those–bc my channel finally got approved for monetization :’’’)–maybe my brain likes the idea of that more lmao (………heres my channel btw)

its really nice to hear you like the things i make and thats its also recognizable. i try to make gifs “current” or whatever but also my own. i create because i have to. its bad for my mental health not to

my blog’s been mostly inactive for the last week and i did notice that i felt a lot better. this week was really good–in a lot of ways. i still want to make things. i unfollowed tags and stuff so i wont even check if somethings been giffed. i’ll just do it, i think. im hoping if i change things i can still be on here and enjoy it.

thank u for all the kind words, this is really encouraging + comforting. i hope this response was adequate..and i also hope you had a nice week. i still want to try because of people like u 💞ily 💞

[rolandfontana]

Courthouse ‘Warrior’ or Diplomat? The Public Defender’s Challenge

Give The New York Times credit.   When it comes to exposing our indigent defense crisis, the paper keeps at it.

Last month, reporters Richard Oppell, Jr. and Jugal Patel produced a story that introduced readers to a public defender in Louisiana with a list of pending cases long enough to require five years’ work, and to bewildered indigent clients in Rhode Island who received one to five minutes of defender counseling at their first court appearance.

The Oppell and Patel survey was given prominent placement.  The Times digital edition deployed interactive features.  Photographs of 113 of one defender’s 194 clients were published to give human faces to the numbers.  It was a serious piece.

Still, while I don’t enjoy saying this, I’ve been doing public defender work for 45 years, and I have read variations of this story 200 times.  The caseload count is worse now in many places than it was in the mid-1970s when I first got involved.

I’m not sure this story—and the legion of stories like it— will make a difference on their own.

The impact of straightforward case counts is unpredictable.  Back in my days as a state public defender in Massachusetts,  I was attacked by a legislator outraged that our state’s too-high (but in the middle-of-the-pack nationally) caseloads were luxuriously low, compared with the desperate situations described in Bob Spangenberg’s pioneering data studies, the precursors of the line of inquiry The Times is now pursuing.

And while we certainly need better time-per-case adequacy standards, the problem isn’t convincing an audience that defenders want more time. People know that by now.

The challenge is communicating what it is that defenders would do with the time.

Some decision-makers have a jaundiced view of public defenders. One legislator told a colleague who was complaining that defenders were paid less than sanitation worker that “the trash men take the garbage off the streets; you guys just put the garbage back out there.”

The defender community’s own infatuation with Herbert Packer’s Battle Model of a criminal process seen as a stylized war—a zero sum conflict between the Crime Control Warrior Cop and the Due Process Warrior Defender—contributes to this situation.

Often, this Battle Model vision is wheeled out as a convenient morale-building shortcut. But it does contain a germ of truth.

In every courthouse where criminal cases are heard, there are damaged or apathetic individuals who have been granted power over the lives of impoverished clients, who enjoy their roles, and who abuse their authority at leisure from positions of complete security.

I’ve represented almost 100 murderers over the years, but only one of them makes his way onto my private roster of The Dozen Worst People.  The remaining eleven places are held by a variety of judges, prosecutors, cops, and other lawyers: racists, sadists, bullies, and liars among them.

It’s true that if you’re not ready to go to war with these people you shouldn’t take a defender job.

But for defenders, as for actual military war-fighters, charge-the-machine-gun-nest courage is an ultimate requirement, more than an immediate one. Having it is necessary, but not sufficient.

It turns out that living humbly in a good cause, not dying gloriously for one, is the actual challenge.

The indispensable personal quality for a defender is resiliency.

That means the capacity to bounce back, the ability to return tomorrow and the next day and summon empathy, to doggedly prepare for battles that will probably never occur, and-—at the risk of sounding insufficiently warlike—to sustain and draw on a reservoir of  patience and kindness toward clients, their families, and their victims.

Thinking about resiliency is important because resiliency is not only a quality in individuals; it is also a crucial property of safe systems.

For better or worse, the criminal courthouse really is a system.  It is not a mechanical system like a clock.  It is not a chaotic eco-system like a swamp.

But it is a complex socio-technical system, like a hospital or an airport.

To begin with, thinking about criminal justice as a system can remind us that this system has an intake valve.  There are simply too many cases. The prosecutors, (according to one quoted by The Times) feel just as overworked as the defenders.

So, stop filing the cases.

As Alexandra Natapoff demonstrates in her brilliant new book Punishment Without Crime, many of them don’t matter, and pursuing them inflicts wide, radiating circles of collateral harm.

Besides, we can learn a lot about the safety of systems under pressure from aviation, medicine, and other fields.

Some systems under pressure break catastrophically:  they are “brittle.”   (Think of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor.)

But others are resilient. They adapt and adjust. They innovate in the face of surprises and anomalies.   The recognition of the importance of resiliency illuminates how the new, data-driven approaches to defending can help convey the indispensable value of defenders’ contributions.

Brady wrongful conviction cases fuel the Villain Prosecutor v. Warrior Defender narrative.  But from a system perspective, they raise the question whether an adequately funded defender might have caught the mistake.

Apart from evidence the prosecutors have and knowingly conceal is evidence they didn’t have (and couldn’t easily get) and that the defenders don’t have the time to uncover and provide. There is still other evidence the prosecutors had, but didn’t recognize as exculpatory because the starved defense couldn’t provide the context.

Systems-oriented “sentinel event reviews” of these wrongful convictions could help us understand why particular prosecutors in particular cases zigged when they were supposed to zag.  It would also show us why the defenders in those cases were unable to provide the resiliency that would have avoided tragedy:  how an overwhelming caseload and the absence of investigative capacity influenced the outcome.

A pair of Rand Corporation studies led by James Anderson and Paul Heaton has compiled and interrogated the data about these issues.

The earlier of the two studies, subsequently published in the Yale Law Journal, shows the influence of adequately funded defense in Philadelphia murder cases.

The salaried staff attorney defenders, who handled murder cases in two lawyer teams with access to in-house investigators and forensic science expertise, produced superior outcomes compared with private attorneys, whose fees were capped and who had to scrounge for investigative and forensic expert resources.

The second study assessed defender performance at the other end of the case-seriousness spectrum by examining a “natural experiment” provided by comparing the “holistic” defense approach of the Bronx Defenders with the traditional approach of the New York Legal Aid Society in the high-volume retail processing of criminal cases.

See also: Tom Reed, “Can Public Defenders Be Reformers?”

I won’t attempt to untangle at this point the complex questions of why the outcomes are different. I just want to point out that the style of defending adopted did clearly produce differences, and that the differences were on metrics—e.g., reductions in incarceration and expense, without rises in the re-offense and failure-to-appear rates—that everyone would accept as system goals.

These studies indicate that, given the time to perform it, the defense function not only protects the clients the defenders “champion.”

It bolsters the overall system’s resiliency.

By mobilizing the defenders’ capacity to “stop the line” and fill the information gaps about the client or the case when the police have followed the wrong trail or our shiny new Risk Assessment algorithm has failed to account for an individual feature, the system saved money, protected the community, and preserved just outcomes.

Of course, “stopping the line” on a Friday afternoon when the judge is trying to clear his docket requires a “warrior” equipped to advocate for some local sacrifice (“No golf!!!??”)  in order to reach the larger systems goals of more justice and lower cost.

But those local sacrifices are what a resilient system delivers.

Understanding American criminal justice requires understanding both the searing individual narratives of persons and communities entangled with that system and the statistical vision derived from a careful consideration of the data.  The vision and the narrative are not only complementary, they are mutually dependent.  One is meaningless-—even misleading—without the other.

The Times coverage and the data-based efforts it describes should help us see that system resiliency—and, ultimately, safety—is “emergent.”   It grows out of the individual narratives that only adequately funded defenders can fully develop, and what it grows into is more than the sum of a pile of anecdotes and sob stories.

Resiliency might be required in different ways and at different times by different failures and challenges.

The current realities of our criminal justice world set ostensibly independent silos—cops, courts, defenders, corrections—fighting with each other over scarce resources.

But it would be good to remember that these elements constitute interdependent parts of a larger whole that can, if its parts are adequately funded, provide greater safety for everyone.

James M. Doyle is a Boston defense lawyer and author, and a frequent contributor to The Crime Report. He welcomes readers’ comments.

Courthouse ‘Warrior’ or Diplomat? The Public Defender’s Challenge syndicated from https://immigrationattorneyto.wordpress.com/