Defendants on the lower end of the socio-economic scale find themselves at the mercy of public defenders who are swamped with cases, understaffed, and underfunded. Research shows that even before mass incarceration accelerated in the 1980s, overburdened systems of indigent defense struggled to meet the 6th Amendment constitutional mandate. Public defenders usually have the deck stacked against them due to discovery laws favoring prosecutors and lack of sufficient resources.
“The California senator's proposal would establish a $250 million grant program, which would put a cap on the amount of work full-time public defenders can take on, bridge the pay gap between public defenders and prosecutors within five years, and generate yearly data on workloads. It would also allocate $5 million for "comprehensive training for public defenders."“
ABC News
May 8, 2019
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