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.
“Travis County is in the home stretch in its years long effort to establish a public defender office for low-income adult defendants. The Texas Indigent Defense Commission on Thursday OK'd a four-year grant to establish the office in the county – the largest jurisdiction in the country without such an office. All told, the state and county money will send more than $40 million toward indigent defense over the 48-month grant period.“
NPR Austin
August 29, 2019
Read More