Monday, March 18, 2013

50 years after right established, not all defendants get lawyer, and they're scanter in rural areas

Fifty years ago today the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, as part of Gideon vs. Wainwright, that everyone accused of a serious crime has a constitutional right to a lawyer, whether they can afford it or not. In honor of the anniversary of the landmark decision, many news organizations looked into how the judicial system is living up to the principle, and found that many defendants are standing trial without the services of a lawyer.

Guilty pleas account for about 95 percent of all criminal convictions, writes Stephen B. Bright and Sia Sanneh of the Los Angeles Times. In many courts, poor people are processed through the courts without lawyers or moments after speaking for a few minutes with lawyers they just met and will never see again.

Most states have little incentive to provide competent lawyers to represent the people they are trying to convict, fine, imprison or execute, the Times reports. Many focus on minimizing costs, awarding the defense of poor people to the lowest bidder, compensating lawyers at meager rates and underfunding public defender programs. This facilitates pleas, speeds up cases and heightens the chances of conviction for anyone accused of a crime.

The Legal Services Corporation, the federally financed organization that provides lawyers to the poor in civil matters, says there are more than 60 million Americans — 35 percent more than in 2005 — who qualify for its services, writes Ethan Bronner of the New York Times. But it calculates that 80 percent of the legal needs of the poor go unmet. In state after state, according to a survey of trial judges, more people are now representing themselves in court and they are failing to present necessary evidence, committing procedural errors and poorly examining witnesses, all while new lawyers remain unemployed.

Georgia offers a case study on the mismatch between lawyers and clients at a time when each needs the other, Bronner notes. According to the Legal Services Corp., 70 percent of the state’s lawyers are in the Atlanta area, while 70 percent of the poor live outside it. There are six counties without a lawyer and dozens with only two or three.

The Florida Supreme Court is considering a limit to its caseload, writes Rick Hampson of USA Today. Last year, the Missouri Supreme Court authorized public defenders with unmanageable caseloads to decline new cases, and the American Bar Association urged states and counties not to fire public defenders who do. The problem is money. An explosion in the number of criminal cases has overwhelmed the indigent defense system, which represents about 80 percent of all accused.

No comments: