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Idaho's Broken System of Indigent Defense

By Michael Blankenship

The National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA) finds that the state of Idaho fails to provide the level of representation required by our Constitution for those who cannot afford counsel in its criminal and juvenile courts. By delegating to each county the responsibility to provide counsel at the trial level without any state funding or oversight, Idaho has sewn a patchwork quilt of underfunded, inconsistent systems that vary greatly in defining who qualifies for services and in the level of competency of the services rendered. While there are admirable qualities of some of the county indigent defense services, NLADA finds that none of the public defender systems in the sample counties are constitutionally adequate. Read more...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Justice Gambit on March 28, 2010 (boomark / email).