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…
Pleading the Sixth: More than 74% of all misdemeanor defendants in Potter County, Texas (Amarillo) face the possibility of jail time without the aid of a lawyer, due to sheriff’s deputies, county prosecutors, and trial court judges exerting direct, overt…
Pleading the Sixth: 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…
Pleading the Sixth: Oregon stands as a cautionary tale regarding indigent defense reform. Often extolled (including by this author) as a working model that provides effective public defense services through a statewide system of contracts, a new comprehensive evaluation by…
Pleading the Sixth: Kept under wraps since being issued in November 2017, the report of the committee appointed by U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts to study the provision of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel in the federal courts…
Pleading the Sixth: On June 27, 2018, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin ordered the compensation paid by counties to assigned counsel appointed by the courts raised from $70/hour to $100/hour beginning in January 2020, while the compensation paid by the state…
