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On June 15, 2010, Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI), chair of the House Judiciary Committee and Rep. Robert “Bobby” Scott (D-VA), chair of the House Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security Subcommittee, hosted “The Constitutional Right to Counsel Summit: A Dialogue on the State Public Defense Crisis & the Federal Response.”
The Summit, organized with the help of the Constitution Project, brought together members of Congress, congressional staff, judges, prosecutors, scholars, public defenders, and other legal practitioners to discuss the impact the current public defense crisis is having on the effective operation of states' criminal justice systems and examine the federal government's role in ensuring that every state meets its Sixth Amendment responsibility to provide competent counsel.
A video of the opening remarks from the Summit is available below; for all other speaker remarks, please click here to visit our video channel.
In his opening remarks, Chairman Conyers acknowledged that this is not a new problem, observing, “Libraries could be filled with the accounts of when the Sixth Amendment was not honored. It has been studied to death. No one argues about whether there’s a crisis or not; we’re all in agreement that there is. Now it’s time we focus on solving it.”
Virginia Sloan, president of the Constitution Project, and Melanca Clark, counsel at the Brennan Center
Professor Tribe opened the discussion by reiterating the Department of Justice’s commitment to addressing the indigent defense crisis and announcing that Attorney General Eric Holder had directed him to express the Attorney General’s strong support for the use of federal money available to state criminal justice systems through the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant program to improve indigent defense programs in the states.
Throughout the Summit Miami-Dade County , Florida Milwaukee County , Wisconsin , echoed Martinez
The former prosecutor in Wayne County, Michigan, Nancy Diehl, also observed that failing to provide the necessary funding for indigent defenders has a devastating impact on the ability to attract and retain high-quality attorneys, which in turn damages the entire criminal justice system. She called on the federal government to help provide the resources necessary to fairly compensate indigent defenders. Tribe also called on Congress “to pass statutes that authorize the [Department of Justice] to impose strings [on federal grants to require states to adequately fund indigent defense], and in many ways we would like to impose strings…. But it’s fundamentally a Congressional issue.”
However, panelists recognized that additional funding for state indigent defense programs is not enough. George Kendall , of counsel and director of the Public Service Initiative at Squire, Sanders & Dempsey L.L.P., noted that there would be no improvement unless states are required to meet national standards in order to qualify for federal money. He also stressed that reform has the best chance for success if the federal government creates an independent agency that could enforce standards, provide grant money and technical assistance to local systems, and advise Congress on issues related to indigent defense policy. Judge Carolyn Engel Temin, senior judge for the Court of Common Pleas in the First Judicial District of Pennsylvania, and Adele Bernhard, associate professor and co-director of the Criminal Justice Center at Pace Law School, also urged the federal government to require state indigent defense systems to meet the standards of the American Bar Association’s Ten Principles of a Public Defense Delivery System.
Additionally, panelists noted that over-criminalization of conduct increased the demand for indigent defense services and exacerbates the crisis. Echoing a view shared by many of the panelists, Judge Michael Wolff of the Supreme Court of Missouri expressed concern with the public’s “appetite for punishment,” which far exceeds its willingness to pay for it. All panelists agreed that the indigent defense crisis will not be solved as long as the criminal justice system continues to expand.
Below is a slide show of recent Constitution Project events that was shown during the Constitutional Champion Awards Dinner
Taken at the Department of Justice's "Looking Back, Looking Forward" Indigent Defense Symposium
From right to left: Harvard Law Professor Charles Ogletree, House Judiciary Committee Counsel Carol Chodroff, Constitution Project President Virginia Sloan, and Representative Bobby Scott (D-VA)
Amy Back's Ordinary Injustice Book Event (01/26/2010)
One Year and Counting:
How and When Will Guantanamo Close? (01/22/2010)
courtesy of Ben Asen Photography
Constitution Project and POGO release congressional oversight handbooks at the National Press Club (7/16/2009)
Audio recording of the National Press Club event (7/16/2009)
Constitution Project and POGO release congressional oversight handbooks on Capitol Hill (7/10/2009)
2009 Constitution Project Awards Dinner (4/2/2009)
