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…
Tag: caseloads & workloads
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.
How public defenders struggle with ethical blindness
Pleading the Sixth: Do psychological factors force public defenders to rationalize sub-par performance in the face of excessive caseloads? And are these unconscious phenomena responsible for the failure to institutionalize caseload controls? These are just a few of the questions…
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