Pleading the Sixth: A new study shows that New Hampshire’s indigent defense system lacks adequate funding and structure to ensure that each indigent defendant receives constitutionally required effective assistance of counsel. The New Hampshire Judicial Council, the entity responsible for…
A new study shows there are two overarching reasons why the State of Illinois is defaulting on its constitutional right to counsel obligations. First, the state requires counties and courts to provide and predominantly fund indigent defense systems in a…
Pleading the Sixth: On June 27, 2018, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin ordered the compensation paid by counties to assigned counsel appointed by the courts raised from $70/hour to $100/hour beginning in January 2020, while the compensation paid by the state…
Pleading the Sixth: A coalition of legal experts petitions the Wisconsin Supreme Court to end financial conflicts of interest between private attorneys and the indigent clients they are appointed to represent. They ask the state’s high court to ban flat…
Pleading the Sixth: Although the Virgin Islands has a territorial public defender office, trial court administrative rules historically authorized judges to conscript any attorney barred in the territory – divorce lawyers and real estate lawyers included – to provide representation…
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…
