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.
“High-level felonies carry sentences of 10 years or more and should each get 70 hours of legal attention, according to a workload study. For Mr. Talaska, that’s more than two years of full-time work. Mid-level felonies require 41 hours each. A few of Mr. Talaska’s clients faced life without parole. Such cases, on average, require 201 hours apiece. In total, Mr. Talaska needed to do the work of five full-time lawyers to serve all of his clients.“
New York Times
January 31, 2019
Read More“The wait list for capital defense representation has been growing for a year and a half, since the state legislature diverted $3 million from the board’s $8.5 million capital defense fund to local public defender offices, a move Dixon describes as ‘basically rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.’ Currently seven people facing the death penalty are in jail indefinitely because they can’t afford a lawyer—a situation that Bunton calls the ‘worst kind of limbo’ for defendants, as well as victims’ families.“
The Appeal
October 29, 2018
Read More"The right to legal counsel has long been the gold standard of American justice under the Constitution. But what happens when a state refuses to budget for public defenders? Louisiana is finding out."
The Atlantic
June 2, 2018
Read More"I don’t think you succeed in limiting jail population without addressing public defenders. If you want to get folks to jail fast, just don’t resource their defenders."
The Advocate
April 28, 2018
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