Legal News

Speedy Trials & The Law

By Dan Slater

From Madoff-related losses to budget shortfalls to over-burdened defenders, state justice systems are going through tough times.

One group, however, could stand to benefit. In a case to be taken up by taken up this week, the Supremes will decide whether delays caused by public defenders can effectively deprive defendants of their Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial.

After Michael Brillon was was charged with hitting his girlfriend in the face, he sat in jail without bail for nearly three years, going through six public defenders before being tried for assault. Last spring, a Vermont court threw out his conviction, saying his right to a speedy trial had been violated. Here’s the AP report, and here’s another from the NLJ.

Forty states and 15 organizations, notes the AP, are backing the Vermont prosecutor’s appeal of the ruling, worried that if it stands criminal suspects will try to game the system and get the result Brillon did.

Maureen Dimino, indigent defense counsel for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, told the AP that cases like Brillon’s will become more common as cash-strapped states cut funding for public defender services. “This is going to become a bigger and bigger issue due to the economic crunch,” she said. “The states are failing to fund these systems, causing these undue delays,” she said.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on January 12, 2009 (boomark / email).