In a lawsuit filed against Kern County last week, the ACLU alleges constitutional violations at the arraignment where probation officers offer plea deals to unrepresented defendants and encourage them to waive counsel in a process that is closed to the…
Assigned attorneys in most of New York State have not received a raise since 2004, when the legislature set the compensation rate at $60 to $75 per hour. The consequence? A “crisis” in assigned counsel programs, at least three pending…
Pleading the Sixth: The fear of government unduly taking away one’s liberty led the United States Supreme Court to unanimously declare it an “obvious truth” that no indigent person can be assured a fair trial against the “machinery” of law…
Pleading the Sixth: On March 2, 2023, the U.S. Department of Justice launched a national tour to commemorate the 60th Anniversary of Gideon v. Wainwright. A focus of the tour’s first stop was timely access to counsel for indigent defendants.…
Pleading the Sixth: Last week, Lee Enterprises published a seven-part series exposing the indigent defense crisis in the West. With data finally showing what the 6AC has known for years and has found in nearly every study – thousands of…
This evaluation was supported by 6AC’s Law Student Network. Are indigent defense services best funded and coordinated by the government at the state level or local level? California has avoided answering this question for decades. Yet, a new 6AC report…
