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A year ago, addressing the American Bar Association’s National Summit on Indigent Defense, U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said that across the country, “public defender offices and other indigent defense providers are underfunded and understaffed. Too often, when legal representation is available to the poor, it’s rendered less effective by insufficient resources, overwhelming caseloads and inadequate oversight.”
In short, Holder said, “the basic rights guaranteed under Gideon have yet to be fully realized.”
Daniel T. Goyette, the chief public defender for Jefferson County in Kentucky, and a member of the ABA’s Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defendants, says that “despite some genuine efforts and notable advances, the criminal justice system and, more pointedly, the leadership of our executive, legislative and judicial branches of government—both state and federal —have largely failed to carry out the constitutional mandate of the Gideon decision.”
He adds: “Sadly, it has not been a priority, and we are constantly taking one step forward and two steps back.”
