{"id":1507,"date":"2021-06-16T12:25:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-16T12:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/twowishesfoundation.org\/?p=1507"},"modified":"2021-06-21T12:33:42","modified_gmt":"2021-06-21T12:33:42","slug":"criminals-treated-better-than-parents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/twowishesfoundation.org\/index.php\/2021\/06\/16\/criminals-treated-better-than-parents\/","title":{"rendered":"Criminals treated better than parents"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p style=\"font-size:17px\">26 February 2021:&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/2021\/02\/26\/noncriminal-cases-right-to-lawyer-representation\/?arc404=true&amp;utm_campaign=wp_week_in_ideas&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source=newsletter&amp;wpisrc=nl_ideas&amp;carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F302c053%2F603b86019d2fda4c88f62e12%2F5e599ca5ade4e2409c885f9f%2F13%2F74%2F603b86019d2fda4c88f62e12\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">this editorial<\/a>&nbsp;in the Washington Post highlights the profound injustice of family law, particularly in many States in the USA: \u201cYou can lose your kids, home and freedom without ever seeing a lawyer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"font-size:17px\">\u201cIt\u2019s a given that criminal defendants in the United States are&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/constitution\/sixth_amendment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">entitled to legal representation<\/a>, free of charge if they cannot afford it \u2014 a right enshrined by the Supreme Court&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.oyez.org\/cases\/1965\/759\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">nearly six decades ago<\/a>&nbsp;and then expanded to cover even minor cases in which incarceration is unlikely. Yet in courts across the country, poverty-stricken litigants in noncriminal cases routinely face life-shattering outcomes, including jail time, without ever seeing a lawyer or receiving basic legal advice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"font-size:17px\">Those cases include disputes in which the stakes could not be higher: forfeiture of parental rights; eviction or foreclosure; danger from abusive spouses and domestic partners; and, in guardianship cases, the loss of control over property, and even liberty. In child-support cases, defendants are routinely incarcerated, for days, weeks or months without recourse to legal assistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"font-size:17px\">\u2026 poor people unversed in the law are on their own when states have not specified a right to counsel and judges cannot or will not provide one. That produces appalling results across a range of legal disputes.\u201d<br><br>Of course, as far as Two Wishes is concerned, the even bigger problem is that kids can lose a parent, or even half their family, based on a decision by someone with a degree in law and no expertise whatsoever in disciplines that might actually know, professionally, what\u2019s best for kids\u2019 wellbeing \u2013 such as scientific research, medicine or health professions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"font-size:17px\">It\u2019s more than an issue of \u201cjustice\u201d too; it\u2019s nothing less than a question of life \u2013 and, potentially, premature death \u2013 for a child.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>26 February 2021:&nbsp;this editorial&nbsp;in the Washington Post highlights the profound injustice of family law, particularly in many States in the USA: \u201cYou can lose your kids, home and freedom without &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1508,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/twowishesfoundation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/injustice.jpg?fit=800%2C445&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/twowishesfoundation.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1507"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/twowishesfoundation.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/twowishesfoundation.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twowishesfoundation.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twowishesfoundation.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1507"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/twowishesfoundation.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1509,"href":"https:\/\/twowishesfoundation.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1507\/revisions\/1509"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twowishesfoundation.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/twowishesfoundation.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twowishesfoundation.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twowishesfoundation.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}