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When indigent criminal defense funding dries up, shrink the criminal justice system.

By Marks & Katz, LLC

Clarence Gideon. Two weeks before I was born, the United States Supreme Court mandated that the states provide lawyers to indigent criminal defendants. Gideon V. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963). (Listen to the later-to-be, short-lived Justice Abe Fortas -- when he was a name partner at one of Washington's still most highly-regarded huge corporate law firms -- arguing for inmate Clarence Gideon who beat all odds by obtaining the rare right to Supreme Court review after having filed a pro se petition for writ of certiorari. It is remarkable to hear the justices barely interrupt Mr. Fortas for a very long time, while still handing him a unanimous victory.)  The National Legal Aid and Defender Association asserts that: "The right to counsel is the most fundamental procedural safeguard to assure a fair trial in which the government and the accused stand equal before the law...continue to full post

Full post as published by Underdog on October 08, 2008 (boomark / email).