Articles about Indigent Defense

In Louisiana a Public Defenders shortage is preventing the state from adequately representing indigent defendants facing the death penalty.

The death penalty is supposed to be for people who have committed the worst crimes, but at times looks like it's reserved for people with the worst attorneys.

Strange quote of the month? "We're running out of death row inmates", said the Clark County, Indiana Prosecutor Steven Stewart. Stewart is referring to the fact that death sentences in Indiana are at record lows! Read about it here:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-in-indianaexecutions,0,4511935...

In the last Equal Justice Edition, I talked about the bankrupting of the Georgia public defense program due to one high-profile capital case. Though the Nichols case is over, the system is still a wreck. One capital defendant in Georgia, Jamie Ryan Weis, has been without a lawyer for eight months as he awaits trial. Weis had counsel earlier, but the state ran out of money to pay the lawyers. With the help of Stephen Bright of the Southern Center for Human Rights, Weis has sued for representation.

From the very beginning, the case of Brian Nichols was notable. On trial for rape, Nichols broke free from his guard at the Fulton County, courthouse, stole a gun, and tore through the building. By the time he was recaptured, he had shot and killed the judge in his trial, a court reporter, a deputy, and a U.S. Customs agent.

Drunk or sleeping lawyers, jailhouse snitch testimony, withheld evidence, faulty science - we couldn't possibly be creative enough to predict all the ways that the death penalty system is prone to error and unfairness. In one recent, absurd case, a man in Texas has had his death sentence upheld, regardless of the fact that the prosecutor and the judge in his trial were romantically involved at the time of the trial! Read more about the story here.

Delma Banks, one of Texas’ longest held death row prisoners, got a second chance at life when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned his conviction on February 24. The Court also ordered that the case be sent back to a lower court for new evidence to be considered.