Manufacturing Consent

Michaels v. Turk, No. E060854 (D4d2 Aug. 31, 2015)

I once had a pro bono case in LA County mental health court where we were trying to get our client released from a county-imposed conservatorship. We won. It took less than half an hour hanging in that Glassell Park courtroom to recognize that the joint suffers from a severe breakdown of a functioning adversarial process. Most of the putative conservatees are represented by public defenders who don’t actually much try to win. Presumably, they believe in good faith they are acting in their clients “actual” best interests—as opposed to their stated ones—by letting them stay wards of the county. In the twenty or so hours I spent sitting around waiting to be called for various matters, I probably watched more than fifty hearings. In all the time I was there, my guy was the only one to leave through the front door.