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232 Results
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Timely access to counsel declared a national priority
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. Looking to Missouri’s recent court order in a class-action lawsuit…
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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 unrepresented defendants going to jail without ever speaking to a…
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Lake County Report is the third strike against California’s deficient indigent defense systems
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 on Lake County, coupled with a prior 6AC report on Santa Cruz County and the ACLU lawsuit in Fresno…
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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 state level. Until Mississippi provides state-level oversight to guarantee that…
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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 examines how the creation of an independent oversight commission in…
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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 no reason. In order to preserve the independence of the…
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Michigan is ripe for another giant leap toward fulfilling its right to counsel obligations
Pleading the Sixth: A 6AC report finds Oakland County, Michigan’s indigent defense system pits assigned counsels’ financial self-interests against the legal interests of their indigent clients while excess caseloads go unchecked under a county system that lacks adequate oversight and supervision. The report concludes that the structural deficiencies identified within…
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New report exposes systemic deficiencies in New Hampshire’s administration and oversight of indigent defense representation
Pleading the Sixth: A new study shows that New Hampshire’s indigent defense system lacks adequate funding and structure to ensure that each indigent defendant receives constitutionally required effective assistance of counsel. The New Hampshire Judicial Council, the entity responsible for administering and overseeing the state’s indigent defense system, lacks independence…
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2021 Year in Review
6AC presents this year in review to acknowledge the most significant reforms to how the right to counsel is funded and delivered across the United States. We wish all our readers a happy and healthy 2022! Indigent defense funding The Kansas State Board of Indigents’ Defense Services (BIDS) provides representation…
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The State of Illinois defaults on its constitutional right to counsel obligation
A new study shows there are two overarching reasons why the State of Illinois is defaulting on its constitutional right to counsel obligations. First, the state requires counties and courts to provide and predominantly fund indigent defense systems in a way that bakes in governmental interference with the right to…
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2020 Year in Review
2020 brought many challenges to people across the nation. Changes to the ways we work and interact have led many to reassess priorities and focus on how we can improve ourselves and our communities. In that pursuit, courts around the country struggled to balance defendants’ rights to speedy and public…
Support Our Work
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.
The Sixth Amendment Center is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization under EIN: 45-3477185.
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