I've written here before about the right to counsel--honestly, I think it is one of the most important protections in our Constitution, because without a lawyer it is difficult or impossible to access all the other rights available to people accussed of crimes yet still entitled to the presumption of innocence. The right to counsel is so important that the Supreme Court has held that when an individual cannot afford counsel, the government has an obligation to provide a lawyer at the government's expense. And, it cannot just be any lawyer--it has to be a lawyer good enough to handle the challenging job of handling a criminal defense. Throughout the country, states are facing crises over the funding of counsel for indigent defendants--a danger that many of us warn of each time a legislator proposes a definition for a new crime, or a new sentence enhancement, or a new mandatory minimum sentence.
Here in Maine, we have a newly created Commission on Indigent Legal Services, which is charged with overseeing the right to counsel for people who cannot afford a criminal defense attorney. Their task is not an easy one, but it is one to which they (and many of us who helped create the Commission) are very committed. I mentioned that there are problems all across the country. My friend Corey Stoughton, who is a lawyer at the NYCLU, has an piece in the Albany paper today that talks about the problems in New York, and the stories she relates could just as easily have come from Maine, or Michegan, or Georgia, or any of the many other states facing budget shortfalls and a strained criminal justice system. I highly recommend that you give her piece a read.
