Will someone, maybe the honorable Brumley, volunter to write a letter, and then all the CAs and CDAs could sign the letter.

I would be willing to sign....as I think most would.

I second the motion to nominate "Wordsmith Brumley"!

One other question....the wording of the bill says we may not "initiate or encourage an attempt to obtain.... a waiver of the right to counsel" or
"communicate with a defendant who has requested...."
What precludes us from visiting with an unrepresented defendant who has not requested court appointed counsel to discuss a plea agrrement as long as we don't discuss the waiver of counsel until the judge has an opportunity to ask the required questions which could be done at the time of the plea just before a judgment is signed? i.e. they don't sign the waiver as part of the plea packet until in front of the judge after admonishments.
As usual, am I missing something in reading the plain language of the statute, regardless of what the intent might have been?
Okay, that was 2 questions.

The problem with these questions is that they point out the ambiguity of a fairly important change in the law. And the danger of being wrong and having the contact is that the same bill creates, for the first time, a presumption that we have done something BAD and ILLEGAL if the waiver is not first obtained. That endagers (1) a prosecutor's license and (2) the judgment.

And there is still the issue about what is so BAD in a prosecutor encouraging (merely for the public good) a streamlined process for determination of guilt of someone who is both guilty and anxious to resolve the charge as quickly and easily as possible. My thought is that under current law, most all defendants who do not consider themselves guilty will request counsel. Now, I agree that some few may have a justification or some other "technical" defense that an attorney only would be capable of spotting. But, in order to spare those persons the pain of a conviction do we really need to pass on to the public the costs associated with this law- especially when the U.S. Supreme Court has already said the constitution permits us to do otherwise? Even if no more appointed attorneys or contested trials were to become involved, this law will apparently prohibit a mechanism that has served the processing of our misdemeanor dockets quite well (regardless of whether it actually says that what we have been doing is illegal or whether its ambiguities mean that is how it will work out in practice). I have to believe the defense bar will not jump on this bandwagon either (though Rebecca may be an exception), since it should not take much of a defense lawyer's time to achieve the result the prosecutor was already ready to recommend (and most fee schedules that I know of do not favor truly adequate compensation for trials of misdemeanors).

But, I have a question. Will the presumption of invalidity apply retroactively, i.e. to any case not disposed of prior to September 1? If so, then effectively the law is probably in force about as soon as it is signed by the Governor (or at least well before Sept. 1).