Download or read book Gideon Undone written by John Thomas Moran and published by . This book was released on 1983 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work provides written and oral testimony of a 1982 fact-finding hearing on crisis in indigent defense funding.

Download or read book The Crisis in Indigent Defense Funding written by Jonathan E. Gradess and published by . This book was released on 1982 with total page 14 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Representation of Indigent Defendants in Criminal Cases written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on the Judiciary. Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Indigent Defense Crisis written by Richard Klein and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 37 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Securing Reasonable Caseloads written by Norman Lefstein and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the criminal justice system to work, adequate resources must be available for police, prosecutors and public defense. This timely, incisive and important book by Professor Norman Lefstein looks carefully at one leg of the justice system's "three-legged stool"public defenseand the chronic overload of cases faced by public defenders and other lawyers who represent the indigent. Fortunately, the publication does far more than bemoan the current lack of adequate funding, staffing and other difficulties faced by public defense systems in the U.S. and offers concrete suggestions for dealing with these serious issues.

Download or read book Chasing Gideon written by Karen Houppert and published by New Press, The. This book was released on 2013-03-19 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On March 18, 1963, in one of its most significant legal decisions, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Gideon v. Wainwright that all defendants facing significant jail time have the constitutional right to a free attorney if they cannot afford their own. Fifty years later, 80 percent of criminal defendants are served by public defenders. In a book that combines the sweep of history with the intimate details of individual lives and legal cases, veteran reporter Karen Houppert movingly chronicles the stories of people in all parts of the country who have relied on Gideon’s promise. There is the harrowing saga of a young man who is charged with involuntary vehicular homicide in Washington State, where overextended public defenders juggle impossible caseloads, forcing his defender to go to court to protect her own right to provide an adequate defense. In Florida, Houppert describes a public defender’s office, loaded with upward of seven hundred cases per attorney, and discovers the degree to which Clarence Earl Gideon’s promise is still unrealized. In New Orleans, she follows the case of a man imprisoned for twenty-seven years for a crime he didn’t commit, finding a public defense system already near collapse before Katrina and chronicling the harrowing months after the storm, during which overworked volunteers and students struggled to get the system working again. In Georgia, Houppert finds a mentally disabled man who is to be executed for murder, despite the best efforts of a dedicated but severely overworked and underfunded capital defender. Half a century after Anthony Lewis’s award-winning Gideon’s Trumpet brought us the story of the court case that changed the American justice system, Chasing Gideon is a crucial book that provides essential reckoning of our attempts to implement this fundamental constitutional right.

Download or read book Free Justice written by Sara Mayeux and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2020-04-28 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every day, in courtrooms around the United States, thousands of criminal defendants are represented by public defenders--lawyers provided by the government for those who cannot afford private counsel. Though often taken for granted, the modern American public defender has a surprisingly contentious history--one that offers insights not only about the "carceral state," but also about the contours and compromises of twentieth-century liberalism. First gaining appeal amidst the Progressive Era fervor for court reform, the public defender idea was swiftly quashed by elite corporate lawyers who believed the legal profession should remain independent from the state. Public defenders took hold in some localities but not yet as a nationwide standard. By the 1960s, views had shifted. Gideon v. Wainwright enshrined the right to counsel into law and the legal profession mobilized to expand the ranks of public defenders nationwide. Yet within a few years, lawyers had already diagnosed a "crisis" of underfunded, overworked defenders providing inadequate representation--a crisis that persists today. This book shows how these conditions, often attributed to recent fiscal emergencies, have deep roots, and it chronicles the intertwined histories of constitutional doctrine, big philanthropy, professional in-fighting, and Cold War culture that made public defenders ubiquitous but embattled figures in American courtrooms.

Download or read book Indigent Representation written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on the Judiciary. Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Caseload Standards for Indigent Defenders in Michigan written by Nicholas M. Pace and published by . This book was released on 2019-10-31 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2017, the Michigan Indigent Defense Commission (MIDC) asked the RAND Corporation for assistance in determining maximum caseload standards for providers of indigent legal representation to adult defendants in the trial-level courts of Michigan. This project conducted three data collection efforts to provide an empirical foundation for these standards. The authors present recommended caseload standards based on analysis of the collected data.

Download or read book Indigent Defense written by U.s. Government Accountability Office and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-08-04 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: " The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees every person accused of a crime the right to counsel. States and localities generally fund indigent defense services, and the Department of Justice (DOJ) also provides funding that can be used for these services. GAO was asked to review federal support for indigent defendants. This report addresses, for fiscal years 2005 through 2010, the (1) types of support DOJ provided for indigent defense; (2) extent to which eligible DOJ funding was allocated or awarded for indigent defense, the factors affecting these decisions, and DOJ's actions to address them; (3) percentage of DOJ funding allocated for indigent defense and how it was used; (4) extent to which DOJ collects data on indigent defense funding; and (5) extent to which DOJ assesses the impacts of indigent defense grants, indigent defense programs have been evaluated, and DOJ has supported evaluation efforts. GAO surveyed (1) all 4,229 grant recipients about funding allocations and (2) a sample of 253 public defender offices about factors influencing their decisions to apply for funding. Though not all survey results are generalizable, they provide insights. GAO also analyzed grant related documents and interviewed relevant officials. "

Download or read book Defense Counsel in Criminal Cases written by Caroline Wolf Harlow and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 12 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book National Crisis National Neglect written by Jonathan Rapping and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the Supreme Court decided Gideon v. Wainright nearly 50 years ago, there has been a Constitutional mandate that people accused of crimes are entitled to effective assistance of counsel. Despite that mandate, competent representation for poor people remains the exception. The Court's response to this development has only compounded the crises, as the legal standards developed to determine when lawyers fall below the constitutional floor encourage incompetent representation. States have also proven to be inadequate guardians of this precious right as lawyers for the poor are excused for failing to live up to their professional obligations to their clients. While indigent defense advocates frequently cite financial and structural reform efforts as the panacea, few commentators appreciate the role that the culture of injustice, that has become acceptable in criminal justice systems nationally, plays in perpetuating the status quo. In this paper I argue that there is a role for the federal government to play in ensuring that the right to counsel, a principle central to the value system of our nation, is realized by all of its citizens. I further argue that an effective strategy for achieving the promise of Gideon must include investment in the human resources (i.e. the public defenders) necessary to carry out this mandate. Through the development of a generation of public defenders who embrace the values consistent with excellent representation, we can ensure that these lawyers for the poor will both begin to deliver on Gideon's promise immediately as well as develop into the future leaders necessary to hold the states accountable for their failures to meet their constitutional obligations. In this paper I discuss the work of the Southern Public Defender Training Center, an organization dedicated to building a community of reformers through the recruitment, training, and mentoring of a new generation of public defenders in the region. I then introduce a bold new initiative called the Public Defender Corps, committed to building on the work of the SPDTC to create a national movement through a public defender fellowship program and suggest that there is a significant role for the federal government to play in supporting this effort. Finally I suggest that without an effort to groom a new generation of public defenders committed to the work and the clients they serve, financial and structural fixes, while necessary, will not be sufficient to bring about the reform needed. I advocate a national push to transform the existing culture of indigent defense as part of any comprehensive reform strategy.

Download or read book Indigent Defense written by Us Government Accountability Office and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2013-08-12 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: States and localities have developed and largely funded their own indigent defense systems. To do so, they have generally adopted one or more of the following methods for providing indigent defense—employing full or part-time public defenders to handle the bulk of cases requiring counsel; entering into contracts with private attorneys, often after a bidding contest, to provide counsel; or developing a list, or “panel,” of private attorneys who accept a predetermined fixed rate and from which the court appoints as defense counsel when needed.

Download or read book Raising the Burden of Proof written by Adam M. Gershowitz and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Indigent defense in America is woefully under-funded. While prior reform efforts have been valiant, they unfortunately have been unsuccessful. For the most part, courts have been unwilling to inject themselves into difficult funding decisions. And when courts have become involved and issued favorable decisions, the benefits have been only temporary because once the pressure of litigation disappears so does a legislature's desire to appropriate more funding. This article proposes an alternative framework designed to assuage courts' concerns about micro-managing budget decisions, while at the same time imposing continuous pressure on legislatures to ensure proper funding. This article proposes that if an indigent defense system is under-funded, the state supreme court should impose a default rule raising the burden of proof to convict indigent defendants to "beyond all doubt" for the subsequent year. The legislature will then have the opportunity to opt out of this higher burden of proof by providing enough funding to bring defense lawyers' caseloads within well-recognized standards or by providing funding parity with prosecutors' offices. Such an approach will create an incentive for legislatures to adequately fund indigent defense without miring courts in detailed supervision of legislative budget decisions. At the same time, because courts can check once per year to determine whether there is funding parity with prosecutors' offices or compliance with caseload guidelines, there will be constant pressure on legislatures to maintain adequate funding in order to avoid the higher burden of proof. This approach should prevent improvements in indigent defense funding from dissipating over time.

Download or read book The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist written by Radley Balko and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2018-02-27 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A shocking and deeply reported account of the persistent plague of institutional racism and junk forensic science in our criminal justice system, and its devastating effect on innocent lives After two three-year-old girls were raped and murdered in rural Mississippi, law enforcement pursued and convicted two innocent men: Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks. Together they spent a combined thirty years in prison before finally being exonerated in 2008. Meanwhile, the real killer remained free. The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist recounts the story of how the criminal justice system allowed this to happen, and of how two men, Dr. Steven Hayne and Dr. Michael West, built successful careers on the back of that structure. For nearly two decades, Hayne, a medical examiner, performed the vast majority of Mississippi's autopsies, while his friend Dr. West, a local dentist, pitched himself as a forensic jack-of-all-trades. Together they became the go-to experts for prosecutors and helped put countless Mississippians in prison. But then some of those convictions began to fall apart. Here, Radley Balko and Tucker Carrington tell the haunting story of how the courts and Mississippi's death investigation system -- a relic of the Jim Crow era -- failed to deliver justice for its citizens. The authors argue that bad forensics, structural racism, and institutional failures are at fault, raising sobering questions about our ability and willingness to address these crucial issues.

Download or read book Model Rules of Professional Conduct written by American Bar Association. House of Delegates and published by American Bar Association. This book was released on 2007 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Model Rules of Professional Conduct provides an up-to-date resource for information on legal ethics. Federal, state and local courts in all jurisdictions look to the Rules for guidance in solving lawyer malpractice cases, disciplinary actions, disqualification issues, sanctions questions and much more. In this volume, black-letter Rules of Professional Conduct are followed by numbered Comments that explain each Rule's purpose and provide suggestions for its practical application. The Rules will help you identify proper conduct in a variety of given situations, review those instances where discretionary action is possible, and define the nature of the relationship between you and your clients, colleagues and the courts.

Download or read book Why Are So Many Americans in Prison written by Steven Raphael and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 2013-05-14 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between 1975 and 2007, the American incarceration rate increased nearly fivefold, a historic increase that puts the United States in a league of its own among advanced economies. We incarcerate more people today than we ever have, and we stand out as the nation that most frequently uses incarceration to punish those who break the law. What factors explain the dramatic rise in incarceration rates in such a short period of time? In Why Are So Many Americans in Prison? Steven Raphael and Michael A. Stoll analyze the shocking expansion of America’s prison system and illustrate the pressing need to rethink mass incarceration in this country. Raphael and Stoll carefully evaluate changes in crime patterns, enforcement practices and sentencing laws to reach a sobering conclusion: So many Americans are in prison today because we have chosen, through our public policies, to put them there. They dispel the notion that a rise in crime rates fueled the incarceration surge; in fact, crime rates have steadily declined to all-time lows. There is also little evidence for other factors commonly offered to explain the prison boom, such as the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill since the 1950s, changing demographics, or the crack-cocaine epidemic. By contrast, Raphael and Stoll demonstrate that legislative changes to a relatively small set of sentencing policies explain nearly all prison growth since the 1980s. So-called tough on crime laws, including mandatory minimum penalties and repeat offender statutes, have increased the propensity to punish more offenders with lengthier prison sentences. Raphael and Stoll argue that the high-incarceration regime has inflicted broad social costs, particularly among minority communities, who form a disproportionate share of the incarcerated population. Why Are So Many Americans in Prison? ends with a powerful plea to consider alternative crime control strategies, such as expanded policing, drug court programs, and sentencing law reform, which together can end our addiction to incarceration and still preserve public safety. As states confront the budgetary and social costs of the incarceration boom, Why Are So Many Americans in Prison? provides a revealing and accessible guide to the policies that created the era of mass incarceration and what we can do now to end it.