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The Right to Counsel in South Dakota

New 6AC report finds South Dakota counties are at a breaking point and need state oversight

Pleading the Sixth: 6AC and the South Dakota Unified Judicial System release a report after a statewide evaluation of adult trial-level public defense services. The report finds that South Dakota’s locally funded, decentralized county-based public defense system results in the denial of counsel and erodes the adversarial system of justice.

Federal district court in Arkansas rules defendants have a right to an attorney at bail hearings  

Pleading the Sixth: The United States District Court for the Western District of Arkansas found that indigent defendants have a constitutional right to counsel at the bail determination, which is part of Arkansas’s first appearance. In coming to this decision, the court utilized both the facts of the case and…

Colorado bans flat fees and low hourly rates in certain cases

Pleading the Sixth: On June 6, Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed House Bill 1437 into law, prohibiting municipal governments from paying indigent defense attorneys flat fees and low hourly rates in domestic violence cases. This bill is part of a national trend toward abolishing flat fees and low hourly rates…

Strike 6: New lawsuit hits in San Mateo County, California

Pleading the Sixth: For years, the San Mateo County Private Defender Program has been touted as one of the best in California. But several reports over the years and a new lawsuit filed in March call that claim into question, highlighting the program’s persistent problem in complying with national and…

New Guam report finds judicial influence over indigent defense

Pleading the Sixth: Guam’s indigent defense system is not independent from the judiciary, impacting the provision of the right to effective assistance of counsel on the island. A new 6AC evaluation explains those impacts while recommending that Guam establish an independent commission with full authority to oversee right to counsel…

The Right to Counsel on Guam

Louisiana Governor institutionalizes political interference

Pleading the Sixth: This week, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry transferred the responsibility of indigent defense from an eleven-member state oversight board to a single governor appointee. Decisions about employment, contracting, salaries, and funding are now under the purview of a single individual and subject to review by a newly created…

South Dakota leaves nation’s “no state funding” list in groundbreaking legislation

Pleading the Sixth: On Gideon Day, March 18, South Dakota’s Governor signed groundbreaking legislation creating a state commission with authority to oversee right to counsel services statewide with overwhelming support from all three branches of state government and various stakeholders. The nation can now celebrate that, for the first time in its history, every…

Strike 5: The State of California calls a strike on San Benito County

Pleading the Sixth. The State of California calls a strike on itself in a new state report that finds “there are signs that effective representation is not being provided” in San Benito County. Since 2020, constitutional right to counsel deprivations have been exposed in Fresno, Santa Cruz, Lake, and Kern…

The Right to Counsel in Lake County, California

At the request of the County of Lake, 6AC conducted an evaluation of trial-level indigent representation services provided in the county. The Right to Counsel in Lake County, California (February 2023) shows that the State of California has not established any means to ensure that Lake County provides to every indigent defendant an attorney who has the time, training, and resources to provide effective representation at every critical stage of a criminal case. Lake County has established an indigent representation system that is completely devoid of basic oversight. The absence of systemic accountability has allowed deficiencies in the provision of direct services to indigent defendants to become institutionalized. The U.S. Supreme Court describes this as the constructive denial of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel.