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 public defender’s office sought to have a lawyer appointed to represent her interests before the appellate panel. The court refused, claiming Lopez didn’t have a right to counsel. If she had been convicted and sentenced to jail on the charge, she would have had counsel appointed to handle her first appeal. But here, the court said, since Lopez wasn’t yet jailed for any crime, she was not entitled to appellate representation."
The Intercept
July 20, 2018
Read More"This civil legal system “crisis”, as advocates call it, has sent states scrambling for solutions. Washington has taken the unusual approach of creating an entirely new legal position, one that can help clients with straightforward legal problems for a fraction of the cost. The new “legal technicians”, the first of whom were licensed in 2015, go beyond a paralegal and don’t need a lawyer’s oversight to offer legal advice."
The Marshall Project
July 18, 2018
Read More"All of this creates a system that extracts guilty pleas (and ever-increasing court fines and fees) from thousands of people each year. Some judges "warn" defendants that asking for an attorney will cause additional delays in case processing. Others promise "better" plea deals for defendants who agree to plead guilty at their first court appearances."
Dallas News
June 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
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