Pleading the Sixth: After decades of public defense studies, legislative and supreme court right to counsel commissions, and numerous attempts at statutory indigent defense reform, the Nevada legislature has created a state commission to promulgate and enforce uniform standards statewide…
Pleading the Sixth: Remote population centers across great geographic expanses, a paucity of attorneys, limited social services, almost no public transportation, restricted tax bases, and non-lawyer judges in misdemeanor courts, are just some of the problems states often face while…
Pleading the Sixth: The Nevada Governor signed into law a bill creating a statewide indigent defense commission. Following the example from Idaho’s recent reforms, the new law funds the commission to hire staff, collect data, evaluate current services, and make legislative…
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…
Pleading the Sixth: On July 23, 2015, the Nevada Supreme Court banned the use of flat fee contracts in the provision of indigent defense services. The same order endorses the statewide commission format. Will the order force legislative change? The…
