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Indigent Defense Round-Up

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Saturday's Kansas City Star carries the editorial, "Missouri needs more public defenders."The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1963 that states, under the Sixth Amendment, must provide legal counsel to defendants who face possible jail time but can?t afford a lawyer. But public defender systems in some states contend, with good reason, that they are too overloaded to fulfill their constitutional responsibilities. Missouri is one of those states. With caseloads overwhelming some offices, the Missouri Public Defenders System is taking unprecedented measures to halt the pileup.And:The typical full-time public defender in Missouri has a workload of close to 300 cases a year. The U.S. Department of Justice?s recommended standard is no more than 225 cases...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on November 17, 2008 (boomark / email).