- Justice Lite: Harris County should beef up its pilot public defender program, Houston Chronicle, editorial, June 20
- Congress must rewrite the law governing lawyers for poor death row inmates, Washington Post, June 21
- Harris County's request for public defender grant in trouble, Houston Chronicle, June 9
- Chief hired for state capital defender office, Houston Chronicle, June 22
- Report: Representing the mentally ill offender: An evaluation of advocacy alternatives, Task Force on Indigent Defense/Office of Court Administration, April 2010
- June newsletter, Texas Task Force on Indigent Defense
- See a video describing the work of the Travis County mental health public defender
- See recent remarks by US Attorney General Eric Holder arguing to expand the role of public defenders.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Indigent Defense Roundup
I don't have time to analyze each of them, but several different items related to indigent defense and public defender offices caught my attention recently:
The Innocence Project is touted so often on this blog.
ReplyDeleteBarry Scheck and Peter Neufeld are co-founded and are Co-Directors of the Innocence Project.
Barry Scheck worked so hard to get O.J. off. He believed O.J. was innocent or just didn't care?
I'm sure he believed OJ, like all Americans, deserved a defense and the various and sundry protections that should be provided to all citizens of the United States.
ReplyDeleteAlso, OJ was innocent.
Rage
12:31, if you must troll, stick to the topic at hand. Neither OJ nor the Innocence Project have anything to do with the indigent defense items referenced. Get a life.
ReplyDeleteA public defenders office in Harris County will take food off the plate of the trial defense lawyers.
ReplyDeleteAll that easy money they get from the judges in exchange for a piss-poor defense attorney that merely advised the defendant to plead guilty or go to prison.
Follow the money on this one.
Wow 12.31... Completely irrelevant and a decidedly amateur reasoning.
ReplyDeleteI guess "Justice for All" should be amended to say "except for the indigent and apparently, OJ Simpson."
It's not all about the money, despite reasoning to the contrary. Of course, some counties debate whether it is cheaper to go with public defenders or rotation appointments of private attorneys, but there is more to it.
ReplyDeleteI've heard judges argue that they believe giving indigent clients more options, which they can do through rotation lists, better serves the client. I've also seen indigent clients believe they will get better results through a private attorney. I think the argument can go either way, depending on how serious the court is about maintaining a legitimate and competent list of attorneys to appoint from.