H.R.916 was passed by the House of Representatives 341-73. We now need to encourage the Senate to pass S.442. That bill has been placed on the Legislative calendar in the Senate but no date has been set for debate. Please take the time to contact Senators Hutchison and Cornyn and urge them to support this legislation. Also, special thanks to those 22 Texas Representatives who voted YEA and a "thanks for nothin'" to the NAYS (Barton, Conaway, Culberson, Hensarling, Johnson, Marchant, Neugebauer, Sessions and Thornberry).

OK, so first let me say, this is wonderful news. I only wish it would have come along 17 years ago since I just did finally pay off my loans.

But, more importantly, anyone notice this quote in the article regarding the legislation on the main page:

�Many innocent people are languishing in jails because we�re not addressing this issue,� said bill sponsor David Scott, D-Ga., lamenting that guilty people are going free because of a lack of prosecutors.

Say what? I can agree with the second part of the quote, but the first?

So now we're prosecuting the innocents not just for all the nefarious reasons that we've grown accustomed to hearing about, but also because our student loans are too high and we're living under the poverty line?

So I'm thinking that the next time I'm accused of causing some innocent person to languish in jail, my response will simply be, "well, I did go to a private law school, you know..."

I puzzled over that one for a while too, Lisa. The only thing I can figure out is something like "there aren't enough prosecutors to try and review cases, so innocent people are sitting in jail waiting on trials longer"?

As someone still in the middle of paying off loans with no light at the end of the tunnel yet, I'm VERY happy about this development.

The act would apply to public defenders as well as prosecutors. My guess is the first part of the quote refers to a lack of PDs and the second part refers to us.

How did all these innocent people end up in jails in the first place? While having more prosecutors and public defenders might get the innocents out of jail more quickly, shouldn't we be more concerned about all these innocent people going to jail in the first place?

Where does that information come from, anyway? Jailhouse polling?

"We're all innocent here. Don't you know that?"

The real question is if this legislation becomes law, will it only apply to new prosecutors just coming out of law school or us prosecutors who still have outstanding law school debt. Can somebody alot smarter than me answer that?

Thanks!

Below is a link to the bill.

I don't think think the bill says its limited to new prosecutors.

GovTrac.us