Pleading the Sixth: In 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that the 14th Amendment permits non-lawyer judges to impose jail time so long as the defendant has the ability to get a do-over in front of a judge who is…
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Speaking Engagements
We are always glad to talk about the ways in which right to counsel services are being provided and how America can live up to its constitutional promise. If you’d like to have us speak to your organization, please contact…
Tennessee undermines own values in providing counsel to the poor
Pleading the Sixth: Tennessee has a grand tradition of holding almost every government function directly accountable to the electorate. However, a major structural flaw in how the state’s indigent defense budget is requested, defended and allocated between the state’s elected…
Idaho Governor signs public defense commission bill into law
Pleading the Sixth: Idaho became the 23rd state to create a statewide public defender commission overseeing right to counsel services when the Governor signed a reform bill into law after it overwhelmingly passed both chambers of the legislature. Though the Governor…
Delaware’s right to counsel deficiencies exposed
Pleading the Sixth: In January 2011, then-Chief Justice Myron Steele sought to end Delaware’s undue judicial interference in the state’s conflict indigent defense services by transferring responsibility for the administration of the conflict panel from the court to the Office…
Gideon v. Wainwright, 50 years later
On March 18, 2013, we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the United States Supreme Court’s watershed ruling for the right to counsel: Gideon v. Wainwright. There, the U.S. Supreme Court declared it an “obvious truth” that anyone accused of a…
