Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Public Defender Stuff

Criminal Law

: Public Defender Stuff

NYCLU sues for better indigent representation

By ambimb

Legislators and local officials typically love to starve indigent defense. The New York Civil Liberties Union has had enough: the lawsuit is a broad challenge to a patchwork system that has been described by decades of studies and commissions as dysfunctional, underfinanced and ?in crisis,? with often poorly trained and poorly supervised lawyers handling huge caseloads. It says indigent clients have been failed by their appointed lawyers all around the state. ?The eyes of the nation will be on New York as it decides this crucial issue,? a brief filed by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers argues. As the system works now, defendants who are unhappy with their appointed lawyers can generally make those claims only after they are convicted...continue to full post

Full post as published by Public Defender Stuff on March 19, 2010 (boomark / email).