Ethics

The New York Times has published this editorial about the public defender funding crisis.  The editorial comes on the heels of this story that we highlighted on the blog a couple of weeks ago.

It's nice to see the issue getting some high profile media attention, but I fear that the problem will only get resolved if public defenders stop taking cases that they don't have enough time or resources to handle ethically.  Unless the system comes to a halt, it seems unlikely to me that state legislatures will make this issue a priority.