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Denver Post: "Suit argues all defendants deserve counsel from the start"

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

Suit argues all defendants deserve counsel from the start by Felisa Cardona in the Denver Post: Colorado's long-standing practice of withholding public lawyers from defendants in minor cases until after they have considered a plea deal is now being challenged in federal court. The practice, enacted in a 1992 state statute, is the subject of a suit filed in Denver's U.S. District Court by Colorado's Criminal Defense Bar and the Criminal Justice Reform Coalition. The two nonprofit organizations argue in the suit, filed against the governor's office, that the practice violates the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. Colorado is the only state with a law that, in effect, requires indigent defendants to go without legal representation until an effort at a plea agreement with a prosecutor is made...continue to full post

Full post as published by Law Of Criminal Defense on December 09, 2010 (boomark / email).