Can our nation afford equal justice under the law?
"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence."
-Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
But at what cost? As the United States reels from the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression, politicians from both parties debate the relative merits of bailouts, TARPs, and government takeovers. Billions are being spent to prop up banks, auto manufacturers and the housing industry. But few elected leaders are willing to address a crisis even more threatening to this nation – the failure of our state funded public defender system.
Firmly entrenched in the United States Constitution is the fundamental belief that every person is entitled to representation by counsel when life or liberty is threatened by state action. The foundation of this right was eloquently explained in 1932 by Justice Sutherland in Powell v. Alabama when he declared:
Even the intelligent and educated layman has small and sometimes no skill in the science of law. If charged with crime, he is incapable, generally, of determining for himself whether the indictment is good or bad. He is unfamiliar with the rules of evidence. Left without the aid of counsel, he may be put on trial without a proper charge, and convicted upon incompetent evidence, or evidence irrelevant to the issue or otherwise inadmissible.
While such thought is now widely accepted, few have stopped to consider the financial price of such a fundamental protection. At a time when millions of ordinary Americans are suffering job losses, rising health insurance premiums and the erosion of their retirement accounts, there is little support for boosting the funding for the state public defender system. Missouri ranks last in the country for funding its public defenders. Missouri’s public defenders are the lowest paid in the nation and their caseloads are among the highest. Large caseloads lead to significant delays in processing criminal cases through the courts. Delay can mean justice denied for both the defendant and the victim. When lawyers do not have sufficient time and resources to adequately prepare their cases for trial, they risk providing ineffective assistance to their clients. Ineffective assistance at trial leads to the conviction of innocent people, added cost to the criminal justice system and further delay in meting out justice to the guilty.
Missouri is not alone in this crisis. Nationally, public defender budgets have been cut 16 to 20 percent when demand for their services has nearly doubled. After declaring that it could no longer take certain probation violation cases due to extreme case overload, the local public defender for the Thirteenth Judicial District in Missouri sought to restrain two judges of the circuit from appointing them in two such matters.
On April 14, 2009 the Missouri Court of Appeals decided State ex rel. Missouri Public Defender Commission et al. v. The Honorable Gene Hamilton and the Honorable Gary Oxenhandler.While sympathetic with the plight of the public defenders office, the court clearly articulated that “the primary authority and responsibility for relieving the problem of limited public defender resources remains with the General Assembly.”
Many local lawyer organizations have stepped in with offers of assistance. Yet, criminal defense is not a skill quickly learned nor should it be placed in the hands of someone ill-prepared. Few lawyers not already engaged in the criminal justice system are capable of taking on such cases. Moreover, failure of volunteer lawyers to provide adequate assistance, either due to case overload or incompetence bears the same fruit.
Money is the answer to the public defender crisis. More money means more lawyers to move cases through the criminal justice system thereby increasing the speed of the judicial process and reducing the likelihood of wrongful convictions. If our nation’s banking and auto industries are “too big to fail” shouldn’t we also consider how to support a system of equal justice so intrinsic to our nation? When only the state and the wealthy have access to lawyers, there is no justice.
Rebecca Lake Wood
President of the Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Association
E | rwood@jacksongov.org