Accused of violating a restraining order, the man from Momence all but confessed to the crime. Speaking through an interpreter, he pleaded his case.
"Tell him his attorney will not want him to talk about the evidence," said Judge Kathy Bradshaw-Elliott.
Then the public defender stepped in.
Far from unusual, the routine afternoon court call on Wednesday did include a first for most indigent defendants. A defense attorney was there from the very beginning when a judge decides how much it will cost to get out of jail.
"Without a [defense] attorney there, the only voice in the setting of bond is the state's," said Judge Clark Erickson, who two weeks ago initiated a policy that a public defender be present at the initial stages of a criminal case.
Though the accused have long enjoyed the right to an attorney, it took decades and nearly a dozen Supreme Court rulings before that right was expanded beyond a trial.
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