“Over the past year, everyone from the conservative Right on Crime project to the Black Lives Matter movement has pushed criminal justice reform to the forefront of political debates. Yet politicians at every level of government remain almost completely silent about one of the biggest crises facing criminal justice: the utter collapse of indigent defense.
“In the landmark case Gideon v. Wainwright, the Supreme Court held in 1963 that the state or local government had to provide a lawyer to any defendant facing prison time who could not afford his or her own. This was no minor decision. Approximately 80 percent of all state criminal defendants in the United States qualify for a government-provided lawyer.”