Brief filed: 09/23/2024
Documents
Tucker v. Idaho
Supreme Court of the State of Idaho; Case No. 51631-2024
Argument(s)
The trial court’s decision to dismiss this case as moot on the hope that the latest reshuffling of the state’s public defense delivery system will redress decades long structural deficiencies is premature at best, and likely to result in irreparable harm to hundreds if not thousands of Idahoans. In granting the State’s motion to dismiss based on “prudential mootness,”the District Court found that Idaho’s reforms “constitute a sincere and genuine promise by the State to create and implement permanent structural changes to provide constitutionally adequate indigent services,” that the transition from the county-based to the state-based public defense system “fundamentally changed the structure and system of public defense, addressing each area Plaintiffs allege are deficient,” and that further litigation was unnecessary because “the State has done more than express mere statements of repentance; it has eliminated the county-based system.” In dismissing the case, the District Court relied heavily on promises of reform without fully assessing their impact on the unresolved systemic and structural defects that lie within the heart of Idaho’s public defense system.
Author(s)
Monica Milton and Bonnie Hoffman, NACDL, Washington DC
