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232 Results
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The Right to Counsel in Oakland County, Michigan
The State of Michigan delegates to its counties, cities, townships, and villages the responsibility for establishing and administering indigent defense systems to effectively represent indigent adult defendants who face possible incarceration for crimes in the trial courts. Funded through the Michigan Indigent Defense Commission at the request of Oakland County, 6AC evaluated Oakland County’s system for providing the right to counsel in those trial courts for which the county government is fiscally responsible – the Sixth Judicial Circuit Court and the 52nd District Court – in an effort to aid the county in determining the feasibility of creating a public defender office. 6AC’s report, The Right to Counsel in Oakland County, Michigan: Evaluation of Trial-Level Indigent Defense Services in Adult Criminal Cases (October 2022), concludes that Oakland County’s assigned counsel compensation method creates economic disincentives that impair defense counsel’s ability to provide effective representation and that indigent defense attorneys’ workloads are not controlled to permit effective representation and that indigent defense attorneys do not continuously represent and personally appear at every court appearance throughout the pendency of the case.
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The Right to Counsel in New Hampshire
The State of New Hampshire has vested in the New Hampshire Judicial Council (judicial council) the entirety of the state’s Fourteenth Amendment obligation to ensure effective Sixth Amendment services. At the request of the judicial council, through the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance, 6AC conducted a statewide study of the indigent representation services provided in the trial courts in adult criminal and juvenile delinquency cases. 6AC’s report, The Right to Counsel in New Hampshire: Evaluation of Trial-Level Indigent Defense Representation in Adult Criminal and Juvenile Delinquency Cases (October 2022), concludes that New Hampshire’s indigent defense system is inadequately funded and lacks the structural safeguards necessary to ensure the provision of effective assistance of counsel to every indigent defendant, as required by the federal and state constitutions, allowing for the possibility of both actual and constructive denial of the right to effective assistance of counsel to at least some indigent defendants.
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The Right to Counsel in Illinois
The State of Illinois delegates to its counties and trial court judges the responsibility for providing and overseeing attorneys to effectively represent indigent defendants in the trial courts, and it delegates to its counties nearly all of the responsibility for funding the right to counsel of those indigent defendants. services. Yet Illinois is one of only seven states that do not have any state-level mechanism to oversee any aspect of trial-level right to counsel services. As a result, Illinois cannot accurately say how many people or cases, and of what case types, require appointed counsel nor by whom the representation is being provided, if at all, and the state cannot know how much the provision of indigent representation should cost nor how to provide it effectively in all 102 counties. At the request of the Illinois Supreme Court and the Administrative Office of Illinois Courts, 6AC conducted a multi-year, statewide study of trial level indigent defense services. The Right to Counsel in Illinois: Evaluation of Adult Criminal Trial-Level Indigent Defense Services (June 2021) explains how, in some circumstances, indigent defendants in Illinois are actually deprived of counsel at a critical stage of their criminal case. In other instances, an indigent defense system attorney is appointed but under circumstances that cause a constructive denial of the right to counsel.
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The Right to Counsel in Santa Cruz County, California
In its attempt to fulfill the right to counsel responsibilities delegated to it by the state, for decades Santa Cruz County has chosen to use private attorneys to provide all indigent representation services. Santa Cruz County is considering how best to provide indigent representation services when its existing contracts with private law firms expire on June 30, 2022. Santa Cruz County does not have an office or person charged with oversight of the entire indigent representation system (both primary and conflict), and the county cannot accurately say how many people or cases, and of what case types, require appointed counsel nor by whom the representation is being provided, if at all. In the absence of this information, it is impossible for the county to determine how much the provision of indigent representation should cost or how to provide it effectively. It is toward that end that the County of Santa Cruz commissioned the Sixth Amendment Center to conduct this evaluation. The Right to Counsel in Santa Cruz County, California: Evaluation of Trial Level Indigent Representation Services (September 2020), explains how Santa Cruz County has delegated all decision-making about the provision of the right to counsel to the private law firms with which it enters into contracts, but without requiring those contract law firms to report information critical to knowing whether they are providing effective assistance of counsel.
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The Right to Counsel in Armstrong County & Potter County, Texas
Texas has 254 counties, and the criminal justice system in each of those counties operates differently from all others. Texas state law requires the judges who have jurisdiction over criminal cases in each county to adopt by local rule countywide procedures for providing counsel to indigent defendants at trial and appeal for crimes punishable by incarceration. Texas state law also requires the county in which a criminal prosecution is instituted to pay the cost of appointed counsel and all reasonable and necessary expenses of the defense at both trial and appeal. The Right to Counsel in Armstrong County & Potter County, Texas: Evaluation of Adult Trial Level Indigent Defense Representation (November 2019), explains how Texas’s statutory scheme that delegates to counties and trial court judges the state’s Sixth Amendment responsibilities opens the door to the dangers of undue judicial interference with the right to counsel.
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The Right to Counsel in Wayne County, Michigan
In Wayne County, which includes Detroit, 75% of indigent felony defendants receive trial level representation from attorneys selected and overseen by trial court judges of the Third Judicial Circuit. The Right to Counsel in Wayne County, Michigan: Evaluation of Assigned Counsel Services in the Third Judicial Circuit (August 2019), explains how forcing trial court judges to design and directly oversee the system that provides attorneys to represent indigent defendants always opens the door to the dangers of undue judicial interference with the right to counsel. Every aspect of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel is impaired, in the felony assigned counsel services provided in the Third Judicial Circuit, by the lack of independence from the judiciary, leaving the personal interests of appointed private attorneys in conflict with the legal interests of the defendants whom they are appointed to represent. Repairing the felony right to counsel at trial requires greater authority and resources than county officials and trial court judges have under the legal and financial construct created by state law.
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The Right to Counsel in Maine
Maine is the only state in the country that provides all indigent defense services through private attorneys. There are two principal reasons that other states have moved away from using solely private attorneys. First, it is difficult to predict and contain costs in a private attorney system. Second, it is difficult to supervise private attorneys to ensure they can and do provide effective representation. The Right to Counsel in Maine: Evaluation of Services Provided by the Maine Commission on Indigent Legal Services (April 2019), explains how Maine struggles with both, as the Maine Commission on Indigent Legal Services is expected to oversee the representation by and cost of nearly 600 attorneys, handling more than 30,000 cases each year in 47 courthouses presided over by approximately 90 justices, judges, and magistrates, with a staff of just three people. Maine cannot guarantee effective representation in each and every case, as is their Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment obligation, as the failure to provide oversight often results in the interest of indigent defendants being in conflict with the financial interests of the attorneys appointed to represent them.
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The Right to Counsel in Oregon
Providing the Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel is a state obligation under the Fourteenth Amendment. The State of Oregon attempts to fulfill its obligation to provide effective right to counsel services in trial courts primarily through an array of contracts let by the Public Defense Services Commission (PDSC), and administered by the Office of Public Defense Services (OPDS), with public defender offices, private law firms, consortia of individual attorneys and law firms, non-profit organizations, and occasionally individual lawyers. The Right to Counsel in Oregon: Evaluation of Trial Level Public Defense Representation Provided Through the Office of Public Defense Services explains how, in doing so, the state has created a complex bureaucracy that collects a significant amount of indigent defense data, yet does not provide sufficient oversight or financial accountability. In some instances, the complex bureaucracy is itself a hindrance to effective assistance of counsel. Moreover, the report concludes that this complex bureaucracy obscures an attorney compensation plan that is at root a fixed fee contract system that pits appointed lawyers’ financial self-interest against the due process rights of their clients, and is prohibited by national public defense standards.
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The Right to Counsel in Rural Nevada
In the 14 counties and one independent city of Carson City that together make up rural Nevada, only 333,373 people reside over an area that is larger than all but ten states. In addition to the sparse population spread across a great geographic expanse, there is a paucity of attorneys, limited social services, and almost no public transportation. It is against this backdrop that the counties and cities of rural Nevada struggle to provide the effective assistance of counsel to indigent defendants, largely without guidance from or oversight by the State of Nevada. The Right to Counsel in Rural Nevada: Evaluation of Indigent Defense Services explains for the first time how indigent defense services are provided in every trial level court outside of Clark County (Las Vegas) and Washoe County (Reno). There are longstanding, deep-rooted problems in the rural courts, including: a dearth of public defense data, especially regarding caseloads; a prevalence of fixed fee contracts; a pervasive lack of independence of the defense function from undue political and judicial interference; and the failure to appoint attorneys early enough in the criminal process. The municipal courts in Nevada are a cause of particular concern where some judges chill the right to counsel by informing defendants that they will be charged for the cost of their representation.
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The Right to Counsel in Wayne County, Michigan
Attorneys with the State Defender Office of the Metropolitan Justice Center of Southeast Michigan are unable to put each and every prosecution to the “crucible of meaningful adversarial testing,” as is their ethical duty and constitutional obligation, because they lack sufficient time, resources, and support staff to properly prepare cases. Such is the conclusion of The Right to Counsel in Wayne County, Michigan: Evaluation of the State Defender Office of the Metropolitan Justice Center of Southeast Michigan. The Sixth Amendment Center (6AC), in cooperation with the Seattle University School of Law (SUSL), finds that State of Michigan and Wayne County share fault for this failure. 6AC and SUSL recommend that the state and county therefore share in the responsibility for providing effective representation in the future.
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The Right to Counsel in Mississippi
Felony defendants throughout Mississippi are arrested and then routinely wait from typically two months to up to a year before a lawyer begins working on their behalf. When a felony lawyer is finally appointed, the attorney is too often under-resourced, overworked, and financially conflicted between working on behalf of the defendant’s legal interests and doing what the attorney needs to do to please the judge to secure the next contract or appointment. The Right to Counsel in Mississippi: Evaluation of Adult Felony Trial Level Indigent Defense Services explains how the vast majority of indigent persons accused of felony crimes in Mississippi never have an attorney working on their behalf prior to their arraignment in circuit court. Instead, during the entire period between a felony arrest and the arraignment on indictment, indigent felony defendants fall into a “black hole” in which they are not represented by an attorney.
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Criminal justice issues that disproportionately harm poor people, such as wrongful convictions and over-incarceration, cannot be fixed if indigent defendants are given attorneys who do not have the time, resources, or qualifications, to be a constitutional check on government. Yet, investment in improving indigent defense services remains largely neglected. The Sixth Amendment Center is the only nonprofit organization in the country that exclusively examines, uncovers, and helps fix the root of the indigent defense crisis in which inequality is perpetuated because poor defendants do not get a fair fight.
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