Pleading the Sixth: On August 7, 2023, the American Bar Association (ABA) passed a revision of the ABA Ten Principles of a Public Defense Delivery System, giving policymakers a new roadmap for providing public defense. The Ten Principles is revised…
Category: Pleading the Sixth
Revised ABA Ten Principles: A new public defense roadmap for policymakers
Tagged with: Ten Principles
Oregon passes sweeping indigent defense reforms
Pleading the Sixth: On July 13, 2023, Governor Tina Kotek signed sweeping legislation into law that overhauls right to counsel services in Oregon. The new law adopts many of 6AC’s recommendations from its 2019 study: it abolishes flat fee contracting…
New Jersey abolishes public defender reimbursement fees in felony cases
Pleading the Sixth: A recent change in state law means that indigent felony defendants in New Jersey will no longer have to pay public defender reimbursement fees; and any outstanding public defender reimbursement fees, liens, or warrants are forgiven. New…
Strike Four, now what? ACLU sues Kern County, California for systemically denying counsel
In a lawsuit filed against Kern County last week, the ACLU alleges constitutional violations at the arraignment where probation officers offer plea deals to unrepresented defendants and encourage them to waive counsel in a process that is closed to the…
Low attorney pay in New York: a cautionary tale for the country
Assigned attorneys in most of New York State have not received a raise since 2004, when the legislature set the compensation rate at $60 to $75 per hour. The consequence? A “crisis” in assigned counsel programs, at least three pending…
The State of the Nation on Gideon’s 60th Anniversary
Pleading the Sixth: The fear of government unduly taking away one’s liberty led the United States Supreme Court to unanimously declare it an “obvious truth” that no indigent person can be assured a fair trial against the “machinery” of law…
Tagged with: Alabama, California, Colorado, Delaware, funding, Gideon v. Wainwright, Guam, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, oversight, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah
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