Pleading the Sixth: On March 2, 2023, the U.S. Department of Justice launched a national tour to commemorate the 60th Anniversary of Gideon v. Wainwright. A focus of the tour’s first stop was timely access to counsel for indigent defendants.…
Category: Pleading the Sixth
Broken Defense, a seven-part series exposes the depths of the indigent defense crisis in western states
Pleading the Sixth: Last week, Lee Enterprises published a seven-part series exposing the indigent defense crisis in the West. With data finally showing what the 6AC has known for years and has found in nearly every study – thousands of…
Tagged with: Actual Denial of COunsel, Arizona, California, caseloads & workloads, Colorado, funding, Idaho, independence, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Oregon, oversight, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Wyoming
Lake County Report is the third strike against California’s deficient indigent defense systems
This evaluation was supported by 6AC’s Law Student Network. Are indigent defense services best funded and coordinated by the government at the state level or local level? California has avoided answering this question for decades. Yet, a new 6AC report…
Tagged with: California, contracts - flat fee, county systems, evaluations of systems, Ten Principles
Mississippi’s “dead zone” highlights the urgent need for state-level reforms
Pleading the Sixth: Mississippi regularly denies felony defendants the right to counsel during the critical stage between arrest or preliminary hearing and arraignment following grand jury indictment. This practice is pervasive, resulting from systemic neglect of indigent defense at the…
New Mexico’s independent state commission is a “complete game changer”
Pleading the Sixth: The New Mexico chief public defender recently requested the state legislature for a 21% increase in funding. Ten years ago, the chief public defender was fired a week after telling lawmakers that the system was underfunded. 6AC…
Judges’ removal of Champaign County public defender sets off alarms in Illinois
Pleading the Sixth: Illinois statutes authorize circuit judges to control the public defense function. In every one of Illinois’ 102 counties, except Cook (Chicago), circuit judges hire the public defender and can fire the public defender for any reason or…
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