 | Public defenders: Families need them
Shame on Minnesota. As a result of judicial branch budget cuts that have decimated the public defender workforce, most Minnesota counties can no longer pay for public defenders for the least among us, impoverished parents who might lose their children forever and the children who might lose their families.
As a guardian ad litem with 10 years' tenure I have advocated for children in more than 100 court appearances. I have training; I am not emotionally involved; I have experience; I have more formal education than all the parents who've sat at the other side of the table. Yet court proceedings can sometimes confuse me. Imagine the confusion of a young mother who hears that the court might terminate her parental rights. She is untrained; she is intensely emotionally involved; she has very little experience with the court system; and, if she's lucky, she has a year of vo-tech education.
As a taxpayer I do not believe that I can always spend my money better than the state can. I cannot hire a public defender for that hypothetical mother because I don't know her nor do I know the attorney who can defend her parental rights. So please, Minnesota executive and legislative branches, raise my taxes enough so that the services that make this a civilized state will be funded.
ELAINE FRANKOWSKI, MINNEAPOLIS
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