On March 18,
1963, the Supreme Court held in Gideon v. Wainwright that states are responsible for representing defendants who are
unable to afford their own attorneys. Justice Hugo Black gave the Court’s opinion
and stated, "in our adversary system of
criminal justice, any person hauled into court, who is too poor to hire a
lawyer, cannot be assured a fair trial unless counsel is provided for him. This seems to us to be an obvious truth." This obligation imposed on states
stems from the Sixth Amendment, which establishes a defendant’s right to
counsel. It also stems from the due
process clause of the Fifth Amendment, which guarantees a defendant’s right to a
fair legal process. Today however, fifty
years after Gideon was decided, the
quality of legal representation afforded to indigent defendants is concerning
in some states.
Terrence Miller’s experience with a public defender illustrates the concerns in many
systems. Miller, who was indicted on
drug charges in New Jersey, met his attorney for the first time just a few
minutes before his trial began. The attorney was assigned to Miller’s case
only four days before the trial, and hardly prepared at all during that time. He did not bother speaking to any witnesses
or to any investigators who had worked on Miller’s case, and did not even speak
with his client prior to trial to prepare him for the witness stand. Unsurprisingly, the New Jersey Supreme Court
affirmed Miller’s conviction after hearing his weak defense.
Sadly, Miller’s
experience is one many indigent defendants face. According to the Innocence Project, a
non-profit legal organization that works to exonerate the wrongfully convicted,
a review of convictions overturned by DNA testing in Illinois revealed “a trail
of. . . incompetent and overburdened defense attorneys, at the trial level and
on appeal.” The organization found that many public
defenders were completely unprepared for trial, having failed to investigate
basic aspects of their clients’ cases.
One main reason
for inadequate indigent representation is that public defenders are underpaid
and overworked. Sometimes, they are
forced to choose efficiency over justice, due to massive caseloads. Surely, this quality of representation was
not what Justice Black was referring to in the Court’s Gideon opinion. According to
Justice Black, a defendant’s right to counsel is a procedural and substantive safeguard
“. . . designed to assure fair trials before impartial tribunals in which every
defendant stands equal before the law.” Clearly, Terrence Miller’s public defender
did not serve as a safeguard for his client, and did not work to provide his
client with a fair trial. Based on his
conduct and lack of preparation, he seemed totally indifferent to the outcome
of Miller’s case and failed to demonstrate the role of counsel described by the
Court in Gideon.
In order for
indigent defendants to receive the fair trials they are entitled to, public
defenders need to be held to a higher standard of competency by the
courts. For example, in Miller’s case,
four out of the five New Jersey Supreme Court justices affirmed his conviction
despite the poor representation he received. The fact that these appellate judges saw the
incompetency of the defendant’s attorney, yet affirmed his conviction is
disheartening. Essentially, the message
these justices conveyed with their ruling is that a public defender is deemed
“competent” even though he knows nothing about the facts of his client’s
case.
Instead of
accepting incompetent representation, judges at both the trial and appellate
levels need to acknowledge the incompetency of some public defenders and attempt to
rectify such misconduct. If public
defenders are held to a higher standard of competency by the courts, then they
will be forced to provide their clients with more effective representation. However, if
courts raise the competency standard for public defenders but their caseloads
remain overly burdensome, then the quality of indigent representation will
likely not improve. According to a
recent New York Times study, many public defenders have an annual caseload of over 1,600 cases. This number greatly exceeds national standards, which limits felony cases to no more than 150 annually per attorney. With such overwhelming caseloads, it is not
surprising that many public defenders are unable to provide adequate
representation to their clients.
Thus, a higher
competency standard could only be realistically imposed on public defenders if
their caseloads are lessened. With fewer
cases, defenders could dedicate more time and effort to each individual client,
and could ultimately provide more competent representation. Unfortunately, due to inadequate funding for
many public defender offices, the problem of excessive caseloads continues to
exist and to contribute to inadequate indigent representation.
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