- The funding crisis in indigent legal services was highlighted by Chief Justice Jonathan Lippman in his 2014 State of the Judiciary address. Chief Justice Lippman noted this Office of Indigent Legal Services report, which he said detailed "more than $100 million in funding needed to bring the counties outside of New York City into compliance with the nationally recognized caseload standards." The Chief Justice also mentioned the pressing need for caseload limits, and stressed the State's responsibility for both the cost and quality of indigent legal representation.
- In 2013 new reports show that:
- States continued to close prisons, and did so at a higher rate than in previous years
- There were more exonerations than in any previous year
- Homicide rates continued to drop in many, but not all, of the nation's large cities.
- Public defense in Monroe County was discussed in this report in the Rochester City Newspaper.
- Missouri State Public Defenders (MSPD) need more time to represent their clients according to this study. After MSPD sought to withdraw from cases due to excessive workloads, the Missouri State Auditor examined the Office's data, and declared it 'lack[ed] sufficient information', causing the Missouri Association of Prosecuting Attorneys to brand the problem 'a myth.' MSPD began requiring defenders to track their hours, and concluded in effective representation takes an average of 106.6 hours in a murder case to 9.8 hours for a probation violation. The New York Times reported on the study here.
- Albany County, New York, has begun a new program to provide counsel at arraignment using funds provided by ILS, as reported here in the Albany Times Union.
- Forensic experts are biased by the side that retains them according to this forthcoming paper in Psychological Science. The authors conducted an experiment in which forensic experts were asked to review case files, with half believing they worked for the defense and half for the prosecution. The result was statistically significant differences in the risk scores the experts assigned to the offender.
- Stressing that "The constitutional and statutory standard for determining eligibility is “financially unable to afford counsel,” not indigency," the New York State Defenders Association issued its updated 2014 income guidelines which many Counties and courts use in the process of determining eligibility for indigent legal services.
- Attorney General Eric Holder has called for the restoration of voting rights to convicted felons as reported in the New York Times and this press release from the Brennan Center.
- State takeover of the defense function was called for in this editorial published in the Watertown Daily Times of St. Lawrence County last week.
- Adrian Thomas' confession was coerced according to this New York Court of Appeals decision. Thomas, whose case was featured in the documentary Scenes of a Crime, was deemed to have been subjected to a 'patently coercive' interrogation when he was told (among other things) that if he continued to deny responsibility for his child's injury, his wife would be arrested and removed from the ailing boy's bedside.
- Delaware's Office of Public Defender meets only one of the ABA's Ten Principles of a well-functioning public defender system, according to this new report from the Sixth Amendment Center. The report highlights serious obstacles to early intervention by counsel in cases, the frequency of 'horizontal' rather than 'vertical' representation, and the absence of training or oversight systems that might improve the quality of representation.
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