NYCLU challenge to public defender system: one story behind the case

Clarence Gideon, a second story man, wrote out by hand a petition for writ of habeas corpus.   He had been denied his constitutional right to counsel, guaranteed by the United States Supreme Court.  He was one step ahead of the court, which appointed Abe Fortas to present the constitutional argument which spawned Gideon v. Wainwright (1963). It declared that a defendant facing jail has the right to a lawyer, and that if he cannot afford one, the court will appoint one.  The Supreme Court soon clarified that the 6th Amendment right to counsel meant the effective assistance of counsel.


Across the country Public Defenders carry that burden.  Kimberly Hurell-Harring was told by a public defender to plead guilty to a felony that wasn’t even a felony.  The PD had problems - he suffered from bouts of depression and had neglected civil clients.  None of that was known when the County commissioners accepted his bid for the annual $50,000 contract.  It was the low bid, the New York Times reports HERE.


The New York Civil Liberties Union has used Kimberly Hurell Harring as the poster child for a system that, it alleges in a class action suit, fails to provide effective assistance of counsel.  The New York Court of Appeals will soon hear the case, in which the defendant State of New York asserts that the trial judge Eugene P. Devine,  the former Albany county Public Defender, is biased in favor of the challengers and should recuse himself.    Devine denied the motion.


The State's defense is made difficult by the 2006 conclusion of a commission to study the problem, which reported to the Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals that "[t]he amount of monies currently allocated within the State of New York for the provision of constitutionally-mandated indigent defense is grossly inadequate".


For the gold standard of adequate defense by public defenders, look to the New Jersey Public Defender's capital defense unit.  Over 25 years, in 228 capital trials, and 60 death sentences, none was executed.  Finally - in December 2007 the Legislature repealed the death penalty and replaced it with life without parole for aggravated first degree murders.  See my essay Herald of Change and the proceedings of the symposium at which it was presented.