Tag: litigation

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

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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.

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Coalition of legal experts petitions Wisconsin Supreme Court to end financial conflicts of interest between attorneys and indigent clients

Pleading the Sixth: A coalition of legal experts petitions the Wisconsin Supreme Court to end financial conflicts of interest between private attorneys and the indigent clients they are appointed to represent. They ask the state’s high court to ban flat

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Should non-lawyer judges be sending people to jail? SCOTUS asked to review

Pleading the Sixth: In 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that the 14th Amendment permits non-lawyer judges to impose jail time so long as the defendant has the ability to get a do-over in front of a judge who is

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Florida Supreme Court grants public defenders the right to declare case overload

Pleading the Sixth: On May 23, 2013, the Florida Supreme Court granted the 11th Circuit Public Defender (Miami-Dade County) the right to refuse new cases due to case overload. Importantly, the Court makes the case that Strickland is an inadequate

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