What Can Obama Do For Public Defense?

Last month, a civil jury found that a public defense attorney in the state of Washington allowed his client to sit in jail for seven months after his accusers recanted.  In those seven months the client lost his job and the freedom so many of us take for granted every day.  The public defense lawyer was being paid at a rate that allowed him to devote a mere 30 minutes to each of the 550 criminal cases he had been assigned in the previous year, almost guaranteeing that mistakes would be made and clients would suffer.

This case was unusual because the attorney’s victim sued and won a judgment against his former lawyer.  But every day, public defenders are forced to prepare for trials with scant resources and little time to defend clients who may spend a great amount of time behind bars.  Imagine if you or your child were depending on such an overloaded and unprepared lawyer to help you navigate the complexities of the law and make life-altering decisions.

My organization, the National Legal Aid & Defenders Association, advocates for front-line attorneys and other equal justice professionals who make a difference in the lives of low-income clients and their families and communities. That advocacy includes support for federal funds and other resources for public defense professionals charged with representing those who cannot afford counsel. For too long, the federal government has failed to support the development of adequate public defense. We are calling on President Obama and the federal government to take the lead in supporting equal justice in our states and local communities.

Systems that operate in a constant state of crisis not only violate the Constitution, but are bad public policy and inconsistent with principles of good government.  Paying for quality counsel saves taxpayer money by ensuring that courts run more efficiently, that jails only pay to incarcerate those who truly need to be incarcerated, and that trials and sentencings are fair and without error, thus preventing the expense of appeals and retrials.

Quality public defense also provides protection against the conviction and punishment of innocent individuals. When our criminal justice system operates without true adversarial testing of the evidence, it is far more likely to result in mistakes that tragically ruin lives. Not only are these mistakes a threat to public safety – for when the innocent are convicted, the guilty are free to continue victimizing our communities – but they re-traumatize true crime victims by failing to bring closure and by making them unwilling enablers of another injustice.

Historically, and despite the right to counsel’s grounding in the United States Constitution, the federal government has done little to fund or support quality public defense in state or local criminal justice systems.  President Obama’s Justice Department and the new Congress can show they are serious about justice for everyone by:

• Supporting balance in the allocation of federal funds for state and local criminal justice systems through explicit language in statutes and regulations;
• Identifying indigent defense as a priority area for training and technical assistance;
• Establishing  and funding  a program of loan repayment assistance as required by section (c) of the John R. Justice Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act of 2008  to assist in the recruitment and retention of public defenders and prosecutors; and
• Conducting a nationwide study to determine the extent to which people are convicted without access to counsel in misdemeanor and low-level felony cases.

Please let President Obama and your congressional representatives know that you care about the fairness of our criminal courts.  Ask them to support proper funding and support for state and local public defense so that America can keep our promise of “justice for all.”