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Indigent Defense in Shambles

By Michael Blankenship

This article in the NY Times captures the current state of indigent defense as well as the desperation of those who fulfill the 6th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution's promise of the assistance of counsel. Our society is failing to live up to this standard, which should be an embarrassment to the legal system and to all of us.Read more....The continued failure to invest adequate resources in the public defender system has several consequences. First, inadequate resources contributes to the prison and jail crowding problem. As the article notes the defendant in Miami was about to be sentenced to 2.6 years in prison instead of one year because of a miscalculation. Wrongful incarceration is expensive - prisons are consuming larger portions of state budgets and families of inmates frequently turn to public assistance as their only means of survival...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Justice Gambit on November 09, 2008 (boomark / email).