Pleading the Sixth: In his State of the Judiciary address, Nevada’s Chief Justice decried the growing justice gap in right to counsel services between urban and rural jurisdictions in his state. Announcing that rural counties simply cannot shoulder the state’s…
Tag: caseloads & workloads
Nevada Chief Justice: “We must do better at providing representation to rural defendants.”
Tagged with: caseloads & workloads, commissions, funding, history, judiciary, legislation, Nevada, rural areas, Shepherd L. Wixom, video
Pennsylvania Supreme Court recognizes indigent defendants’ right to sue before receiving ineffective representation
Pleading the Sixth: On September 28, 2016, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that indigent defendants have the right to challenge systemic deficiencies at the outset of a case before having to suffer from actual or constructive denial of counsel. Moreover, the…
Missouri Governor shows why indigent defense crisis will not be fixed without defender independence
Pleading the Sixth: When the Missouri Public Defender, Michael Barrett, appointed the Governor to represent an accused indigent defendant, it brought national attention to the state’s longstanding underfunding of right to counsel services. Now, after a local judge ruled Barrett…
An Open Letter to the Next Missouri Governor
Pleading the Sixth: On August 2, 2016 the Missouri State Public Defender appointed the Governor to represent an indigent defendant. Whereas, the sitting Governor is term-limited out, the 6AC turns to the two major party nominees with an overview of…
Utah’s right to counsel deficiencies
Pleading the Sixth: On October 26, 2015, the Sixth Amendment Center released a report exposing Utah’s long-standing, deep-rooted indigent defense deficiencies, including no state oversight, prosecutors in charge of some local indigent defense budgets, excessive defender caseloads, and a prevalence…
Last Week Tonight tackles indigent defense crisis
The 6AC was proud to help the folks at Last Week Tonight with John Oliver over the past couple of weeks as they developed an in-depth segment on the nationwide indigent defense crisis. Watch it here.
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