This opinion of the California Supreme Court -- in response to the Ninth Circuit's certified question -- is unanimous, and reading Justice Evans' opinion, you can potentially see why. She does a very good job of exploring the interplay between the various statutory provisions here, some of which were added by the Legislature and others of which were added by the electorate Proposition 139. Forthrightly, I'm not certain at all that the voters were, in fact, fully "aware" of the way the California treated various prisoners when it passed the underlying initiative (in fact, I'm extremely confident that they weren't), but I understand and appreciate that we pretend that they were when we seek to harmonize various statutory provisions.
I just have one question.
Imagine that you're a lawyer -- as, indeed, most of you are. You, presumably, care a fair piece about justice, in every sense of that word, right?
On your deathbed, are you really excited that your principal contribution to California jurisprudence is making sure that jail inmates who are not convicted of any offense -- e.g., pretrial detainees -- are paid absolutely nothing for the eight hours of work they do every day in the kitchen for a private employer (thereby, coincidentally, taking that job away from someone else) whereas inmates who have been found guilty of a crime are entitled to receive pay equal to that paid to the company's private employees?
That's just, honestly, not something that I think is just, or -- at a minimum -- something that I really want to devote the (increasingly) limited hours of my remaining lifetime to accomplishing.
I say that not to pick on -- at all -- the (winning) counsel for appellants here. The first representative matter he lists on his firm's web site, for example, is a pro bono case that he and others at the firm litigated to "successfully secur[e] compassionate release for a D.C. inmate and military veteran, reuniting him with his family." Well done. I can see why that's something that, on one's deathbed or otherwise, one might be legitimately proud of accomplishing. (I get it if others might disagree, on the theory that the inmate had presumably been convicted of a crime and released before he served his full sentence, but the point is that the end result is consistent with one's own personal values.)
But helping to make sure that innocent inmates (i.e., the presumptively "not guilty") get paid absolutely nothing for their work, whereas guilty inmates get paid? Nah. Everyone, of course, deserves to have an attorney to help them argue their position in court, especially if they happen to be right on the law.
I'll just let someone else brief and argue that one, thanks.
Maybe there's someone in the world who would defend the proposition that guilty people should get paid for their work in prison but that innocent people shouldn't. Personally, though, I just don't see it.
Regardless, at least until (and if) the law gets changed, that's currently the rule in California.
