In a lawsuit filed against Kern County last week, the ACLU alleges constitutional violations at the arraignment where probation officers offer plea deals to unrepresented defendants and encourage them to waive counsel in a process that is closed to the…
Pleading the Sixth: For decades, Santa Cruz County has delegated to private law firms, through county contracts, all decision-making about the provision of Sixth Amendment right to counsel services. The county cannot accurately say how many people or cases, and of…
