To the Editor:
“One Lawyer, One Day, 194 Felony Cases” (news article, Feb. 3) highlights a national crisis: State and local governments’ failure to ensure adequate funding for public defense is resulting in widespread violation of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel for poor people charged with crimes.
The harms that result from such dereliction of duty include more people behind bars, more wrongful convictions, harsher punishments and exposing more people to the crushing collateral consequences of criminal convictions that can affect housing, employment, immigration and parental rights.
And without effective public defenders, critical efforts to end mass incarceration, reform bail procedures and improve prosecutorial practices cannot be fully realized.
In response to the dilapidated state of public defense in America, the American Civil Liberties Union has brought litigation in numerous states, from California to Missouri to Louisiana. The Supreme Court has made clear that an accused’s “right to be represented by counsel is a fundamental component of our criminal justice system” and that lawyers are “necessities, not luxuries.”
State and local governments should stop abdicating their constitutional and ethical responsibilities.
Ezekiel Edwards
New York
The writer is director of the A.C.L.U.’s Criminal Law Reform Project.
Source: Read Full Article
Home » Analysis & Comment » Opinion | Public Defenders, Unfunded
Opinion | Public Defenders, Unfunded
To the Editor:
“One Lawyer, One Day, 194 Felony Cases” (news article, Feb. 3) highlights a national crisis: State and local governments’ failure to ensure adequate funding for public defense is resulting in widespread violation of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel for poor people charged with crimes.
The harms that result from such dereliction of duty include more people behind bars, more wrongful convictions, harsher punishments and exposing more people to the crushing collateral consequences of criminal convictions that can affect housing, employment, immigration and parental rights.
And without effective public defenders, critical efforts to end mass incarceration, reform bail procedures and improve prosecutorial practices cannot be fully realized.
In response to the dilapidated state of public defense in America, the American Civil Liberties Union has brought litigation in numerous states, from California to Missouri to Louisiana. The Supreme Court has made clear that an accused’s “right to be represented by counsel is a fundamental component of our criminal justice system” and that lawyers are “necessities, not luxuries.”
State and local governments should stop abdicating their constitutional and ethical responsibilities.
Ezekiel Edwards
New York
The writer is director of the A.C.L.U.’s Criminal Law Reform Project.
Source: Read Full Article